At 02:42 AM 12/24/2008, Juho Laatu wrote:
> ... the Condorcet voting system will never get off the ground
> so long as a 5% FP Condorcet winner is a realistic scenario,
> as it is when
> the current (pre-reform) political system is so dominated
> by two big political parties.
The question is if methods that may
regularly elect a 5% first place support
Condorcet winner can be politically
acceptable.
That a 5% first-preference support candidate could be the Condorcet
winner is radically improbable under anything like current
conditions. For it to happen would probably take very different
conditions, which would probably mean that we don't have a clue as to
what would be politically acceptable.
I can easily imagine such a winner with Asset used single-winner, and
there wouldn't be any question about legitimacy, it would be
*obviously* legitimate.
One reason supporting this approach is
that most single-winner methods are
designed to always elect compromise
winners. (Some methods like random ballot
are an exception since they give all
candidates a proportional probability to
become elected.)
Random ballot hasn't a snowball's chance, I'd say. Even though the
theory might support it, I wouldn't vote for it! Not unless there is
some prefiltering. I'd support random ballot in close elections where
the winner isn't clear. It could cause some defacto proportional
representation, and I know of a prominent and very important -- to me
-- organization where that is done.
In electing delegates to the General Service Conference, area
conferences hold repeated ballots; they are seeking a two-thirds vote
supporting the delegate. If it can't be found within a certain number
of ballots or time, I'm not sure which, the winner is selected at
random from among the top two.
AA is an organization which seeks general consensus, and this
approach gives minority positions some representation, they've been
using it for more than fifty years. "Some representation" is enough
when consensus is being sought....
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