On Apr 28, 2010, at 2:19 PM, Peter Zbornik wrote:
Condorcet methods have not been used in politics yet, I think.
Condorcet has not yet been used in a *government* general election.
that does not mean it hasn't been used in politics. it has been used
in organization elections for a single winner. i might consider the
Czech Green Party to be an "organization". you can choose to use
whatever method you like without having to get a law passed as you
would in a general election.
Are there by any chance other methods to elect centrist presidents?
Condorcet *does* tend to favor centrist candidates because Condorcet
makes good use of 2nd-choice rankings and people on the two extreme
wings are likely to choose the centrist for their 2nd choice over the
extremist on the other side.
but that is not a good reason to use Condorcet. there are many
reasons to use Condorcet but the main reason is simply majority rule:
If a majority of voters agree that Candidate A
is a better choice than Candidate B, then
Candidate B should not be elected.
that's really it. that's why Condorcet is the correct method over IRV-
STV, Plurality, Borda, Bucklin, Range, Approval or whatever else they
come up with. it's simple, transparent, and directly compatible with
the goals of majority rule.
despite Kathy Dopp's knee-jerk reaction against STV, it probably
remains to be the simplest fair method to get proportional
representation for the multi-winner Council seats. IRV proponents
like to extend STV to single-winner, but it's pretty well established
that it's inferior to Condorcet. sometimes they elect the same winner
and sometimes they don't. the problem is when IRV fails to elect the
Condorcet winner - when that happens, a majority of voters agreed that
Candidate A is a better choice than Candidate B, yet Candidate B was
elected.
--
r b-j r...@audioimagination.com
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
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