Some more observations.
Party officials and representatives have more weight in decision making than
regular voters. The opinions of regular supporters of party A could be
A>Centrist>B, but the opinions of people whose future and career are tied to
the party have more A>>>Centrist>B orientation. Some of them may simply count
the number of days that they will be in power vs. in opposition. They want to
rule themselves, not that someone ideologically close to them rules. From that
point of view a two-party system may be better than one that allows also small
parties that are ideologically closer to win. Parties that are ideologically
close may be interpreted also as worst enemies since they may steal votes that
would otherwise be yours (they might thus even think A>>>B>Centrist). These
people could be more interested in going back to plurality from Condorcet than
from IRV. And they are the ones that are in power (or have more power than many
others).
Juho
On 8.7.2011, at 12.43, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:
> Juho Laatu wrote:
>> On 8.7.2011, at 11.00, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:
>>> But now consider a parallel universe where the CW always won (and
>>> these victories were significant, i.e. people really preferred the
>>> CW to the rest). Say Montroll won. Then Kiss-supporters and
>>> Wright-supporters might try to unite in the feeling that Montroll
>>> wasn't what they wanted ("we don't want any steenkin centrists");
>>> but if they tried so, there would be a majority who did like
>>> Montroll (because he was the CW), and therefore these could block
>>> the repeal if it came to a referendum.
>> Condorcet methods are majority oriented, but unfortunately CW has
>> majority only in pairwise comparisons. Majority of the voters would
>> choose the centrist rather than X. But it is possible that majority
>> of that majority would want Y rather than the centrist. And quite
>> typically majority of the voters prefer someone else to the CW.
>
> My point is that a majority of a majority isn't enough in a repeal-or-not
> referendum. If the repeal side can gather only a majority of a majority,
> while the keep-it side can gather a full majority, the method remains.
>
>> In a two-party oriented political system both major parties would
>> prefer a centrist to the candidate of the other major party. But if
>> they think carefully, maybe it would after all be in their interest
>> to just accept the fact that the major parties rule each 50% of the
>> time, instead of e.g. the centrists ruling 50% of the time, leaving
>> 25% to each of the major parties.
>
> The more general concept that you mention is of course true. I was
> considering Condorcet methods as new methods versus other methods as new
> methods, and giving a possibility that Condorcet methods might outlast
> non-Condorcet methods in voting reform.
>
> If society didn't have any bias at all, and could coordinate, it would
> quickly converge to the method that would do it best. The society would say
> "We don't like the spoiler effect, let's find a way to fix it". But because
> voting reform is hard, we can assume that doesn't hold true.
>
> So yes, voting reform will be hard, no matter what new method you want to put
> in place. I'm merely saying that because of dynamics, it might be easier to
> replace status quo with a Condorcet method (and have the new method last)
> than it is to do so with a non-Condorcet method (and have *it* last), because
> majorities can complain more often in the latter case than in the former.
>
> If people are in favor of two-party rule, well, then Plurality will remain.
> If they want two-party rule with no chance of minor spoilers upsetting the
> outcome, they may settle on IRV. But even here, Condorcet wouldn't be worse
> than IRV: if the voters want two parties, then one would assume they'd vote
> in a manner consistent with it. Third parties wouldn't break free -- because
> the voters don't want them -- and a cloneproof Condorcet method would keep
> minor spoilers out of the way.
>
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