Hi Raph, > The odds of it actually working are pretty low. For it to work, all > voters must be aware that C is a valid compromise.
Sure, that's the flipside of it being so ultimately simple. The easiest way to safeguard against a small number of non-cooperative voters would be to require only, say, 90% of the "consensus" ballots to have the same option ticked in order for that option to be elected. I guess that's what you mean by threshold: > In practice, there needs to be a reasonable threshold. There is > always going to be a need to balance tyranny of the (N%) majority > against the hold-out problem. Even with a 90% threshold, a tyranny of a 90% majority can be avoided, but this requires another slight modification: Instead of on two separate ballots, every voter marks her favourite and consensus options on one ballot using markers "1" and "2". Then a ballot is drawn at random. If at least 90% of all ballots mark the same option "2" as this drawn ballot does, then that option wins. Otherwise the option marked "1" on the drawn ballot wins. In this way, a bullet-voting faction of, say, 5%, allocates at least 5% winning probability to their favourite (as required by my interpretation of "democratic method"). Yours, Jobst ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
