Sorry, I didn't read the original proposal carefully enough to see that it was intended as a type of non-partisan blanket primary.
Open or blanket primaries make it easier to engage in pushover strategy, where one party tries to make sure the opposing party nominates a weak candidate who can be easily defeated in the general election. That's the main reason most parties (e.g. Democrat, Republican, Libertarian) oppose open primaries. A blanket primary was just defeated in California (November 2004).
Also, using an approval-like method in the first round of a two-round election makes possible risk-free collusion strategies, where two parties gang up to exclude a third (perhaps Condorcet candidate) so that they can face each other in the final round.
Would this proposal allow both strategies to be pursued simultaneously?
My preference at present is for a plain approval primary, which is either a closed primary or a California-style "modified open primary" in which voters can choose any party on election day but can only participate in that party's primary.
Bart
Alex Small wrote:
So, as I understand, the gist of the proposal is:
1) If there is a Condorcet Winner
and
2) That CW has more than 50% approval,
then skip the general election. Otherwise, eliminate candidates with the weakest support and hold a general election using some suitable method.
That seems reasonable to me. Some here would probably argue that there's no need for a primary election at all if we use Approval, Condorcet, or some other method suitable for more than 2 candidates. However, I see some practical value to first thinning out the field and allowing a period of further debate before making a final decision. The only exception should be when there's a clear consensus in favor of one candidate. Requiring both majority approval and a Condorcet victory seems a reasonable measure of consensus.
I am not so sure that I like the idea of implementing the approval cutoff at the third rank. It would make more sense to give voters maximum flexibility by letting them express their own approval cutoff.
Also, I'm not so sure about setting the cutoff for the general election at 1%. That might let in just about every candidate in most primaries. I'd be more inclined to say that the top N get in (where N is some number that we can debate). If one of the candidates decides to drop out then the candidate with the next greatest number of votes can be offered a spot on the ballot.
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 16:41:09 -0800 From: Ted Stern Subject: [EM] primary election thoughts To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain
What do group members think of the following primary election proposal:
- Ballots allow a voter to rank 1st, 2nd or 3rd choice candidates.
- Unlike IRV, more than one candidate can be chosen for any rank.
- Any 1st/2nd/3rd choice vote is considered an "approval" vote.
- Use Condorcet to tally.
- If a Condorcet winner exists, with more than 50% of the voters approving, then that candidate wins immediately and the seat doesn't have to be decided in the general election.
- Otherwise, eliminate candidates with less than 1% approval.
- On the general election ballot for that seat, candidates will be listed with the Condorcet winner (if any) at the top, with remaining candidates listed below in order of approval.
This would be an alternative to either Louisiana-style top two runoff or closed party primary.
I'm curious what advantages of full Condorcet might be lost by reducing the options to only 3 ranks.
[The general election could also use a 3 choice ballot with some robust Condorcet completion method such as Ranked Pairs (wv), optionally using approval-weighted pairwise ranking.]
IMO, the main benefits of such a primary would be
1) The ballot would be relatively simple, no different from some IRV proposals or the "Borda" of www.vote123.info (really just a Cardinal Rating scheme).
2) Non-controversial positions would be decided in the primary and the general election ballot would be much less cluttered.
3) Popular cross-over or third-party compromise candidates could win races a t the "primary" level without being eliminated before the general election, and even more clutter would be eliminated from the general election ballot.
4) The general election would be reduced to just controversial races. In those, candidates would vie for highest approval rating on the general election ballot.
In Washington State, the voters approved a Louisiana style top-two-primary initiative last November. This law cannot be changed within the next 2 years except by another initiative. There is an IRV initiative circulating in the state. I'd like to see a better alternative.
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