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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNoSpacing>Assume you have 100 voters with all different political views (1-100).<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNoSpacing>(1 being very liberal, 100 being very conservative and 50 middle of the road).<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNoSpacing><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNoSpacing>L Party members are 1 to 37 in political views.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNoSpacing>C Party members are 63 to 100 in political views.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNoSpacing>The M's (no partisan/independents) have 38 to 62 in political views.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNoSpacing><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNoSpacing>The L Party members select a candidate with political view of 25.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNoSpacing>The C Party members select a candidate with political view of 73<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNoSpacing>An independent candidate also runs for the office with 52 political views.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNoSpacing><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNoSpacing>Assume that each voter votes for the candidate with views closest to theirs.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNoSpacing>The vote is in: L Party candidate = 37 votes, M candidate = 24 votes, and C Party candidate = 39 votes.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNoSpacing>With a winner-take-all election the C Party candidate wins with only 39% of the votes.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNoSpacing>If you assume there are no Parties and we have the same people running for office you get the same results.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNoSpacing>A two party system is a natural result of a winner-take-all type election.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNoSpacing>That is why we have congressman and congresswoman with political views of around 25 and 75.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNoSpacing>"Duverger's law is an idea in political science which says that constituencies that use first-past-the-post systems will become two-party systems, given enough time."<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNoSpacing>THE PLOBLEM IS NOT THE PARTIES BUT THE VOTING SYSTEM.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNoSpacing><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNoSpacing>If we had a Condorcet election system in the above election then we have M>L 63/37 and M>C 61/39.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNoSpacing>Thus M is the Condorcet winner.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNoSpacing>You may end up with more parties (with less political power) and get less extreme office holders (more 50's).<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNoSpacing><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNoSpacing>NOTE: With a TOP-TWO type system we still would have L versus C in the general election with C winning.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNoSpacing>If we assume we have an L 10, an L 40, an M 50, and a C 80 we could have the top-two as L 10 versus the C 80.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNoSpacing>Not only that problem, but given enough time the "Party officials" will end up choosing the L (or C) candidate and not the "Party members" to avoid splitting the votes.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNoSpacing>It is still a Plurality type voting system (i.e. two-past-the-post) and can tend to favor the more extreme.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNoSpacing>I have no problem with a general election of the top-two Condorcet primary winners.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNoSpacing>In the above election we would have M (M>L 63/37 and M>C 61/39) versus L (L>C (51/49) with M winning the general election.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNoSpacing>And in the other example we would have L 40 versus M 50 (and not L 10 and C 80) with M winning in the general election.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNoSpacing><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNoSpacing>Don Hoffard<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>