[EM] (3) MJ -- The easiest method to 'tolerate'

[Kevin Venzke]

Hi Fred,

I think that the systems are not causing this. Rather voters and the political actors change every
system they encounter into the same genre of thing. Non-politicized roles seem to exist only where
there is no real power or no controversy about how to use it. We design systems for the worst case
scenario because the worst case scenario is what we see everywhere.

If you "let" voters collaborate I think they will just decline to do so. But can we "force" them
to behave differently? I.e. give them incentives to act as though they are collaborating? I think
that would be an interesting topic.

Kevin




----- Mail original -----
De : Fred Gohlke <fredgohlke at verizon.net>
À : election-methods at lists.electorama.com
Envoyé le : Dimanche 4 septembre 2016 10h19
Objet : Re: [EM] (3) MJ -- The easiest method to 'tolerate'

Good Morning, Chris Benham

I want to thank you for this critical insight:

   "An election for a powerful political office isn't a jury-
    like collaboration among voters to select the best winner.
    Rather it is competition between factions of voters who are
    trying to elect their favourites and/or prevent the election
    of some candidate they consider relatively bad."

You explain, with great clarity, why faction-based systems betray the 
public interest.  On a site devoted to electoral methods, it is a 
tragedy that no effort is devoted to creating methods that let the 
voters collaborate to select the best advocates of the common interest.

Fred Gohlke
----
Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info