On May 9, 2008, at 10:46 , Jobst Heitzig wrote:
Dear Raphfrk
you wrote:
One issue with random processes is that they don't work well for a
legislature. A majority would just keep asking that the vote be
repeated until they win it.
Saying that a re-vote cannot occur unless the situation changes would
require that a definition of a change in the situation be decided.
Alternatively, laws could be considered social contracts which have
a duration and certain terms of termination which would have to be
met by any later decisions to change the law.
Also, people have a certain level of distrust for random processes.
I don't think people would accept a President who was elected even
though he only had a 1% chance of winning. I am not sure what the
threshold is before it would be acceptable (some people would object
to a 49% candidate winning instead of a 51% candidate).
This is probably true. I would not recommend such a method for
elections of Presidents or the like but for bodies who frequently
make individual decisions on issues.
Probabilistic methods are actually proportional methods (at least if
they aim at giving n% probability to a candidate with "n% support",
or some other probabilities that the voters like more). I don't know
what the other (non-proportional) methods should be called here since
"dictatorship of majority" is not valid in this particular case.
Maybe "always elect the best" (according to some criterion) is more
accurate.
Juho
Yours, Jobst
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