At 06:39 PM 12/21/2008, James Gilmour wrote:
It MAY be possible to imaging (one day) a President of the USA
elected by Condorcet who had 32% of the first preferences against 35%
and 33% for the other two candidates. But I find it completely
unimaginable, ever, that a candidate with 5% of the first
preferences could be elected to that office as the Condorcet winner
when the other two candidates had 48% and 47% of the first
preferences. Condorcet winner - no doubt. But effective
President - never!
Depends on the process. What if the process required majority
approval. I.e., say it was a Range ballot, and "first preference" is
expressed with a 100% vote. (Voters *may* express multiple first
preferences, perhaps but there is little strategic incentive to do
so, a 99% rating would have almost the same impact. Or a first
preference marker is required, there could be some reasons for doing
that.) But 50% rating is defined as "Approval." I.e., consent to elect.
If the winner had a majority of ballots showing consent to elect, why
would you think that this President couldn't be effective? We don't
require that now! And some very effective Presidents didn't get a
majority. They got a majority in the electoral college, that's different.
What if the electoral college were actually representative? What if
it used real deliberative process, instead of voting as obligated?
So, perhaps, electors, say, represented first preference votes. A
candidate gets 5% first preference. But this is really the compromise
candidate, and because of this, eventually gets the votes of a
majority of electors? Why would this be a bad result?
Low first preference can mean different things. It means, for
starters, that the candidate isn't the candidate of a major party.
That could mean ineffective, or not. It would depend on the context.
I'd assume that the electors representing the major party candidates
wouldn't compromise on this one unless they though he or she would be
effective!
But *effective* isn't everything. Sometimes it's enough to Do No
Harm. In a badly polarized environment, on the verge of a civil war,
electing the candidate with the most "core support" can be a total
disaster, think the Hutus in Ruanda.
James
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