John B. Hodges said: > Some time back I asked why the folks here worked so hard to find > other methods of Proportional Representation when we had Party List and > STV, which seemed to cover all the necessary bases. People > responded with their complaints about both methods.
Well, many of us are interested in election methods for intellectual reasons as well as practical reasons. Yes, we want to see better election methods implemented, but we are also personally intrigued by some of the intellectual issues related to election methods. Devising a different election method to satisfy some criterion might help us understand what is necessary in order to satisfy that criterion, and hence why certain phenomena can occur. The hope is that some of this can later be used to inform the design of simpler election methods, or at least enrich our personal understanding. Even if we (hypothetically, mind you, let's not open old debates just now) never proposed anything more complicated than Approval and Party List in public discussions, a deeper personal understanding would help us when questions arise. Also, there is a small group of professionals who study election methods for a living. In any campaign to introduce a new election method (whatever it might be) we will almost certainly butt heads with some of them (e.g. Saari). We need to know what we're talking about. So an academic understanding of the deeper mathematical issues is worth having, and proposing arcane methods for fun on this forum may be a good way to enhance that understanding. Alex ---- Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
