Yes, Condorcet would probably work in - say - a U.S. presidential election. Enough legitimate non-"Pro Wrestler" types would run to keep those candidates from winning. Anyway, pro wrestlers do win fluke elections even in plurality - witness Jesse Ventura in Minnesota a few years back. There is still the "later-no-harm" issue, though, and I think that many voters would bullet vote - especially the major party supporters (which are the ones who may in fact benefit immensely from bullet voting).
However, in a situation like my student government, there would be less interest in running - and the possibility of a "Monster Raving Loony" type candidate winning would be far higher... On MMP - I wonder if anyone has looked into the semi-proportional nonpartisan MMP I mentioned earlier... It would do a best-loser top-up by % of vote without taking into consideration parties. It almost seems like it would be pretty close to PR, except for parties who can't even manage a reasonable number of 2nd or 3rd place showings in a constituency and for major parties who win a strong majority government. It does seem like it would help the Liberal Democrat (UK)/NDP (Canada) type parties, and even smaller parties would gain a seat hear and there... On 4/25/07, Howard Swerdfeger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Chris Benham wrote: > > > Howard Swerdfeger wrote: > >> Tim Hull wrote: >> >> >>> Condorcet, on the other hand, does not suffer >>> from the center squeeze. However, it suffers from the opposite >>> problem - >>> the so-called "Pro Wrestler" or "Loony" syndrome in an election with a >>> couple polarized candidates and a weak centrist or joke candidate. >>> In my >>> student government elections, I picture this being a candidate walking >>> around campus in a clown suit and winning based on becoming >>> everybody's #2. >>> Also, Condorcet's later-no-harm failure may mean people give a less >>> sincere >>> ranking than in IRV, though this failure is far less so than in range. >>> >> >> This is a potential problem with all pure Condorcet methods. >> It might be able to be overcome with some restrictions >> Candidate must have >5% first preference votes or be one of the top 5 >> candidates in number of first preference votes. >> Or some other restriction might help. >> >> > > I can see why this is a marketing/propaganda problem, but not why it is > a *real* problem. > One reason why not is that Condorcet gives serious candidates incentive > to contest the centre so if the > election is serious then at least one serious centrist will run and one > will win. If the election isn't serious then > why is "polarised candidate" necessarily a better winner than a weak > centrist or even a "joke candidate"? I have no argument for why additional popular Centralist candidates would not run. Indeed would suspect this is probable in many real world situations. Allow me for a moment to escape in to a magic world of Ideal situations: The fundamental problem is that any strict ranking method takes the nD Issue space on which we imagine voters base decisions and translates them into a 1D preference, In this there is loss of information. Imagine 2D political spectrum. Imagine a divided society, where almost every voter exists at one of 2 points (1,1) and (-1, 1) now imagine 3 candidates one at (1,1) A, one at (-1, 1) B and one at (0,0) C. voters Near candidate A would vote A>C>B and voters near candidate B would vote B>C>A it is likely given a some some random alignment of other small portion of the population that C could win. Is this Good for society? Arguments against would be : * The vast majority of the population on the second axis is at or near 1. Yet we just elected the candidate that is furthest from this position. * very few people in the population actually support Position 0 on the X axis, yet that is the candidate elected. Arguments For it would be... Well there are quite a few, and I am sure you can come up with them on your own. >> While I agree party lists are "rotten". >> >> there are lots of other multi winner PR systems, that don't require a >> party list >> MMP where the "top-up" comes from the best of the losers. >> > > How exactly does this version of MMP work? See Tims reply. That is essentially what it. But there would be variations on what you could do with that also. > > > Chris Benham > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > ---- > election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info ---- election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
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