From: Allen Pulsifer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > The ballot allows a each voter to first vote for their preferred winner, and > then mark their approval/disapproval of all other candidates. > If one candidate gets a majority of the votes, he or she wins. If not, > there is a runoff election. In the runoff election, the candidates > themselves cast the votes on behalf of the voters who voted for them, as > proxies. > > They may vote for themselves, or they may cast their votes in a > manner consistent with the approval/disapproval indications of the persons > who voted for them. In the runoff election, the plurality wins.
I don't think it is appropriate to call it a plurality really. You would need 50% + 1 votes to get elected (unless the "other side" doesn't unify against you, and then that is tacit support). The point with plurality is that you don't get a 2nd chance. In any case, implementing your proposal may be harder than you think. Is there an easy way to summarise a set of approval votes so that the candidates knows what combinations they can use ? For example, assuming that I get 3 votes (A,B,C,D are other candidates) and the summary is just the approval total for each candidate. A,B,C,D A,B C,D The totals are: Total: 3 A: 2 B: 2 C: 2 D: 2 >From the summary, it would look like I could transfer to any candidate up to a maximum of 2 as long as my total was 3. >From that A:2 B:1 would be valid. However, that is not valid as it cannot be obtained by transferring the votes: A,B,C,D (send to A) A,B (send to B) C,D (send to ??) Would you want the candidates to literally go through all of their votes handing them one by one to other candidates ? One option would be to use a sample. The candidate would select 40 votes at random from his supporters. Each one of those votes would be passed to a candidate approved on the vote and would count for 1/40 of the vote share. > For sake of argument, let's say the votes were 47% for the Republican > candidate, 40% for the Democratic candidate, 11% Green and 2% Libertarian. > Let's further (unrealistically) assume that all voters (or enough voters > that it doesn't matter) gave approval to all candidates. The winners could > then be the Republican or a coalition between the Republican and the > Democrat, the Republican and the Green, or the Democrat and the Green. In > this scenario, the Green candidate would be the swing vote and would have a > lot of power, but if he/she wanted too much, the Republican and Democrat > could form an alliance. In reality, the Republicans and Democrats would never form an alliance. This is firstly due to the fact that they don't really like each other's policies. Also, the small party would never be that unreasonable. Look at it from the perspective of one of the large parties, if the form an alliance with the other major party, they will have to give up around 50% of the power. The smaller party would never make a request for that much power. However, the smaller party could easily make a request for 20% of the power. This is still alot more than its fair share. In any case, in such a situation, all 3 parties have nearly identical power. The total number of votes doesn't make much difference. If this was applied to single seat constituencies, then maybe there might be cooperation between democrats and republicans, but not on something like a presidential election. > Let's say the vote were 47% for the Republican candidate, 40% for the > Democratic candidate, 11% Green and the Green voters only gave their > approval to the Democratic candidate. Now the Democratic and Green > candidate will have to find a way to work together, or they would lose, > giving the Green candidate reduced leverage. Hmm, interesting point. However, I think voters for a small party would be smart to not do that as it cripples the party's negotiations. They can make great gains from playing the 2 major parties off against each other. > Let's say the vote were 47% for the Republican candidate, 40% for the > Democratic candidate, 9% Green and 4% Libertarian. Now either the Green or > the Libertarian candidate could swing the election, and they have to compete > with each other by making the more attractive offer. That is more reasonable. In fact, it is the reason why having lots of parties is a good thing. In Ireland, 2 elections (or maybe 3) ago, 2 parties were one seat short of having a majority. There was one independent in the Dail, so they convinced him to support them. He demanded various upgrades to his constituency in exchange for his support. He would often appear on a road complaining about pot-holes or something. In the next election, there were 4-5 independents. However, now they had alot less power exactly because they were independents. In the end, they formed an informal party. The election that followed that, there was alot fewer independents. > Basically, what is happening is that the candidates themselves are using the > power given to them by the voters to best represent their strategic > interests, make horse trades, extract promises, and then cast their votes > accordingly. > > Has anything like this been proposed or studied before? It is similar to asset voting. However, asset voting doesn't put any restrictions on what they candidates can do with the votes. It is a pure proxy system. ---- election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
