Puzzling where this comes from.
If the voters are to vote, they still need to decide who to vote for.
These committees look like a lot of work - remember that there are many
elections on a normal election day - some perhaps with districts as small
as one precinct.
Cure for this nonsense is for most of the committee members to flip a
coin, or equivalent, before voting.
On Thu, 15 Sep 2005 09:24:30 -0400 Abd ulRahman Lomax wrote:
At 05:17 PM 9/14/2005, Simmons, Forest wrote:
(1) Pick 400 registered voters at random. Give them time off work,
and have them study the candidates carefully and decide a tentative
winner by some reputable method (like DMC, Shulze, Approval, Asset
Voting, etc.) It will definitely be worth the time for these voters,
since there will be an appreciable chance that their votes will be
pivotal.
(2) Analyze the ballots from step 1 statistically. If the results are
so decisive that there is less than a one percent chance that a
different winner would emerge from the same method involving the
entire electorate, then submit the tentative winner to the electorate
for ratification by a Yes/No vote. [and more]
The idea of using a committee, essentially, to select a tentative winner
is an excellent one, and parallels my own ideas in a way. If the
committee is statistically unbiased, it should work. Tricky to ensure
that, however.
It would be a good idea to have *any* election result that is below a
clear and general consensus (supermajority definition not stated here)
be submitted to a ratification vote. This effectively forces voters to
approve or disapprove of the result. Thus, in the end, it is Approval
which has been used, in a way, with a very significant tweak that deals
with straight-ticket, truncated votes.
However, it might be advisable to allow more than one candidate on the
runoff ballot. Top two (by undefined standards; what about Condorcet and
Approval winners?) might be appropriate. More than that, we would start
to get strategic voting in the runoff. Another option in the runoff
might be () Start Over.
If a majority of the voters want to redo the whole election process, it
should be their privilege. Presumably the existing office-holders would
remain pending new results, or there could be statutory caretakers.
However, in my own concepts, instead of some abstract (or possibly
corrupt) agency choosing voters at random, *the voters* choose
representatives on the committee, through Delegable Proxy. The committee
functions deliberatively, instead of aggregatively. The committee could
be quite a bit smaller. And the result would *still* be subjected to a
full vote by the general electorate. (Committee members would have
variable voting power according to the votes they received.
Alternatively, Asset Voting would be used to create a PR Committee that
is almost fully representative, while being a peer committee, though
this introduces constraints that produce the "almost."
In a DP committee, one member might represent a very large percentage of
the electorate. If the committee size is fixed, this allows members to
be elected to the committee who represent much smaller blocks of voters.
This is why DP is more fully representative than Asset. However, there
could be advantages to peer committees, in terms of the encouragement of
collegiality.
In the end, the voters should choose their own election methods. And,
again, DP is a way to do it that would be likely to produce an
intelligent result, enjoying the broadest possible consensus.
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED] people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek
Dave Ketchum 108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY 13827-1708 607-687-5026
Do to no one what you would not want done to you.
If you want peace, work for justice.
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