Hello Greg, (I already agree with your arguments. I'm rolling them at another question.)
Greg Nisbet wrote: > As a brief overview, I was more criticizing the motives of people than > suggesting a particular plan. Any plan that some person touts changing > society in manner X shouldn't really be trusted. (Blind trust is naive, but blind dismissal is imprudent. The best we can do is rational discussion and critique.) Your critique of motives for electoral reform had this point: > > > To what extent is it legitimate to design an electoral method to > > > change voter behavior/opinions rather than respond to it? I'm replying with the counterpoint that this criterion of legitimacy is recursive. It applies equally to the design and implementation of the electoral method itself. So I ask: To what extent is an electoral method legitimate if it is not the choice of the electors? We think we know best, and we may be right; but that's beside the point. > > 1. What reform can free the electors of external manipulation? > > 1. Pretty much all of the methods that people advocate here would do the > trick. Various Condorcet Methods, Range Voting, IRNR etc. The actual method > itself isn't that big an issue. As I mentioned in "Making a Bad Thing > Worse", the main problem here is how we decide who is most deserving of > votes or what restrictions to place on them. I'd say that as long as the > voting system is reasonably independent of clones and everyone's vote is > counted equally, the specifc electoral method is of little consequence. What > is of consequence is the myriad laws that accompany it, none of them > improving voters' ability to influence their government. The "Making a Bad > Thing Worse" discussion mentions some of the things that damage this. For > the United States, at least, getting rid of these silly laws would go a long > way toward the deregulation of politics. We could expand the general argument to questions of law (What is the legitimacy of a law without popular assent?), or of norms in general, or decisions in general (c, below). For now, I'd just expand my counterpoint slightly, so it also covers the assemblies (legislatures and councils) where laws and bylaws are voted, as well as the electoral systems (primary and general) where the officials are voted. So: To what extent is a voting system legitimate if it is not the choice of the voters? > > 2. Through what plan of action can we implement the reform? > > 2. I'm not entirely sure. I'd really have to think about it. I'd say > that http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/ is a pretty good idea. (A lobby.) > > 3. In the act of implementing the reform, what assurance do we have > > that we ourselves are not manipulating the electors? > > 3. I'd say that the methods here for the large part don't do this. Most of > the arguments here are about which method represents the voters the best, > not which changes society in way X. I'd say as long as it doesn't lead to 2 > party domination, is independent of clones, and allows reasonable voter > expressiveness, it won't lead to government manipulation of politics. You see my point, however. The technical merits of a solution are not the criteria of legitimacy. The perfect voting system (the best for the voters) is *wrong* if the voters themselves do not approve it; while the worst possible system (allows all sorts of abuse, and does harm to the voters) is *right* if they approve it. The only criterion that matters is their approval. It's their system. So this is my answer to all 3 questions, and to your original post: Let the voters choose. Can't we help them? When it comes to choice, we're supposed to be the pros from Dover. -- Michael Allan Toronto, 647-436-4521 http://zelea.com/ ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info