On Mar 5, 2007, at 7:02 , Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
How, indeed, it occurs to me to ask, are we to know who "got their
way" in a secret ballot system? The presumption might be that the
"way" was gotten by a party.
It would be just my luck that by the time I wised up and became a
Republican, the Democrats would get their turn. (Make no
assumptions about my personal politics from this.)
It is possible to link the information that is carried from one
election to another to parties or candidates as well as to the
voters, depending on the characteristics of the environment.
Readers may know that I favor Range Voting as an election method,
which does not automatically choose the preference of the majority,
for it considers preference strength, if the voters choose to
express it. I've said it before and I'll probably say it again:
The majority properly has the right of decision, but it wisely
exercises this carefully, with consideration of possible harm done
to minorities.
I wouldn't go that far (away from the Range ideal :-). Often the
majority has the power to do so and often it may be well justified to
allow and support that but I wouldn't give them the right as a
general rule.
Juho
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