On Apr 24, 2007, at 1:51 , Howard Swerdfeger wrote: > a) I guess I was thinking of "Non-competitive" as one where the > winner is obvious long before the contest is held (boxing: Me vs > Mike Tyson). and "competitive" as one where the winner is not known > until the last possible moment (Running: Me Vs. You!).
This use of the word correlates with the way I used it (but may also differ in many cases). > b) accepting your definition for the purpose of this thread. Ok, my use of the term is not a stable definition in the area of election methods, so also different terminology may be used. > 4) The ultimate form of democracy is one that > * maximizes voter knowledge of issues > * seeks to Involve the voters at every stage of decision making > process (direction, Discussion/deliberation, Vote) Agreed. These are some very key principles that make a democratic system work well. > * generates a laws and directions for society that is > representative of the beliefs of all well knowledgeable voters. Yes, assuming that we try to make all voters "knowledgeable" (as in the first bullet) and don't deny the less knowledgeable ones the right and recommendation to vote as well. > Many people in the last election who voted Conservative did not > really want the conservative in power. They mainly wanted the > ruling Liberals out of Power. and the only party with enough > support to do that was the Conservatives. > > Same goes for the one before that election. Many people "Plugged > there nose" and voted Liberal because they were afraid of the > "hidden agenda" from the "Religious Right" in the Conservative Party. This sounds like the "one dimensional" (binary) spectrum of alternatives of a two-party system is not sufficient for the voters in this case. Multiple parties and/or ability to provide opinions in more than one dimension (traditionally often the left-right axis) would probably reduce the "nose plugging effect". Juho P.S. One more comment on the older mails. The number of voters has an effect in the sense that the higher the number of voters is the more probable it is that one voter doesn't feel that he/she can trust all the other voters to be his/her friends but will vote against him/her (in a competitive way). This may increase the probability that this voter decides to vote strategically (since probably others do so too). In small groups people may thus trust that all members of it know the needs to all others and will take them into account in a fair way. In big groups others may be seen as "strangers that one needs to defend against". ___________________________________________________________ All new Yahoo! Mail "The new Interface is stunning in its simplicity and ease of use." - PC Magazine http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html ---- election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info