I think there is no single definition of democracy in the sense that
it would determine which voting method is the best (for all
elections). Majority, Condorcet and random ballot are good answers
but maybe for different questions (in some special cases even Range
could be a correct answer).
One basic example is electing a (giant) pizza for a group that often
eats out together. The correct answer might be to use random ballot
and eat 49% of the times pizza A and 51% of the times pizza B. But
when electing a political leader (with a strong mandate) to a country
random ballot may not be the correct answer. If the support is e.g.
45% Bush, 45% Clinton, 10% Hitler it may be better to just use a
method where one elects randomly either Bush or Clinton (instead of
electing Hitler with 10% probability). Even when we have 55% Bush,
45% Hitler it may be better to just pick the majority favourite.
There are also other possible criteria. In some elections we may want
to elect the alternative that people like a lot. In other elections
we may want to elect the alternative that people dislike as little as
possible. In the leader example above I obviously wanted (roughly) to
elect a compromise that is ok to most of the citizens and that is a
compromise rather than an extremist.
Sometimes there is no method that would meet the (possibly very well
defined) needs e.g. due to problems with strategic voting and one has
to pick a method that is closest to what one wants.
In short, different methods for different needs. Some methods are
good for many types of elections but not necessarily for all.
Juho
On Dec 20, 2007, at 22:37 , Jobst Heitzig wrote:
Dear Rob!
As you may expect, I am not at all of the opinion that majority
rule is
perfect, no matter how few options there are. The reason is simple: no
majoritarian method can ever be democratic because it allows 51% of
the
electorate to consistently keep the other 49% of the electorate from
having any power at all, whereas a democratic method required
everybody
to have the same amount of power. In this sense, majority vote is far
from being "fair".
The simplest democratic method in the two-options case, as with more
options, is random ballot. In those unfortunate situations in which it
cannot be guaranteed that both options are constitutional, random
ballot
should perhaps be modied in a way which ensures that only an option
with
at least, say, 5% support may win. (With more than two options, random
ballot is of course not optimal since it does not encourage voter
cooperation to elect good compromise options but rather elects polar
options. D2MAC solves this problem while still being democratic.)
Yours, Jobst
rob brown schrieb:
My understanding has been that in a simple two candidate election,
there isn't any need for alternative election methods, and all the
issues that condorcet/approval/range etc attempt to solve simply
disappear. A plain old majority vote is "perfect", as long as there
really are only two candidates. There is no conflict between
strategy
vs. sincerity, and there is a single Nash equilibrium -- which is
simply that everyone picks the candidate they prefer.
Is this controversial? For instance, could a two candidate election
be improved by, say, collecting information about how *much* each
voter likes or dislikes the candidates in question? Assuming at
least
some honest voters, this approach might be able to improve the
"maximum net tangible utility" ("tangible" meaning we are only
counting the happiness with the results themselves, and ignoring such
less-measurable utility such as "feeling of fairness" or "elimination
of resentment" or "long term satisfaction with the election process
itself").
My own opinion has always been that the (perceived?) fairness of
"everyone's vote counts the same" outweighs any desire for "maximum
net tangible utility." I'd even go so far as to say that this would
be true even if we knew all votes were honest (say we put everyone on
a perfectly accurate lie detector).
So, I am quite happy with plain old majority vote for a two candidate
election. But I am encountering those who seem to disagree with
this,
and who don't seem to have the same concept of "fairness" as I do.
I'm curious if people here see this as a legitimately controversial
issue.
Thanks,
-rob
----
various voting related stuff at karmatics.com:
http://karmatics.com/voting/movienite.html
http://karmatics.com/voting/bargraphs.html
http://karmatics.com/voting/bars-demo.html
http://karmatics.com/voting/rank.html
http://karmatics.com/docs/collective-self-interest-fallacy.html
http://karmatics.com/docs/evolution-and-wisdom-of-crowds.html
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