I see governor as the initial office to attend to. Simpler single person
offices can be simplified from that base.
Presidential race is even more important, but its extra complications
deserve a separate discussion after this one.
I see Condorcet and RV as the base election methods. I will argue against
IRV for its problems, and against methods that are more difficult to do
for multiple precincts.
On Mon, 26 May 2008 22:14:43 +0300 Juho wrote:
> On May 26, 2008, at 17:41 , Fred Gohlke wrote:
>
>> Because our physical needs often dictate the course of our lives,
>> most of those who would make the best leaders are unaware of their
>> political talents and are never able to exercise them.
>
>
> Or may think that it is not possible or tempting for them to first
> fight their way through the unpleasant jungle to then deliver something
> better than that fight through the jungle. Or they may think that the
> system is too rotten or too strong opponent for them to even provide
> good end results after the fight. Or they may think that those who seem
> to be more motivated also have better ideas than they do.
>
>> They are out there. Can we find them? My interest is in doing so.
>
>
> I don't think we can "find" them but we can increase the probability
> that they will find their way to the top.
>
>> In the course of outlining this suggestion, you mention several
>> aspects. I will summarize my understanding of them ...
>>
>>
>> * Nominations are open to the entire electorate.
>>
Agreed, but any one nominator cannot sign for more than one nominee - and
must be in the electorate. Lists of nominators accessible to all, but not
especially publishable.
A goal here is to, usually, get a reasonable quantity of candidates:
Perhaps aiming for at least five whenever at least that many wish to
be candidates - anything working to limit to two major backers (parties)
is unacceptable. Twenty should be acceptable, but too many to have as a goal.
Number of nominators required to nominate a candidate seems like
primary control toward this goal
Nominee must accept nomination.
Nominee expected to provide a resume, inside size limits, but permissibly
linking to whatever else nominee feels needs saying.
Election system publishes these resumes accessible to all.
>>
>> * Anyone can nominate anyone else, including oneself, for office,
>> provided the nominated person accepts the nomination. If
>> restrictions on the nominations are established, they might include:
>>
>> - an educational minimum
>>
>> - if expertise is required in the area for which the person is
>> nominated, a degree symbolizing competence in that area.
>>
>> - if trust is required in the area for which the person is nominated,
>> support of at least 100 persons in addition to the nominator,
>> expressed by email or in some other form.
>>
By choosing to nominate, the nominators, whatever quantity required, have
asserted this.
>>
>> * Nominations (the name of the nominator and nominated) are recorded
>> by an election coordinator.
>
>
> Listing the nominators may not be always needed. In some cases there
> could be 100 nominators.
>
>> * The election coordinator publicizes the list of candidates.
>>
Plus resumes per above.
>>
>> * The public votes for the candidate of their choice ...
>
>
> I guess "public" doesn't necessarily mean that the ballot would not be
> a secret/anonymous ballot.
>
>> - by voting for a single person, or
>>
>> - by making a list of the candidates the voter approves, in which
>> case the candidates are listed in order of preference. If the first
>> candidate on the list does not get sufficient first place votes for
>> election, that candidate is dropped from the list and the second
>> candidate moves into the first position on that ballot. In this
>> case, since anyone may nominate anyone else, voters may write the
>> name of their candidate on the ballot.
REJECT - this has at least the smell of IRV. Condorcet uses the same
ballot but shows more interest in honoring voter desires.
Write-ins belong. Think on a simplification for counting: Treat
write-ins as if a candidate:
Usually this will verify that there are not enough to affect results.
When there are too many write-ins, redo the count with each such
name treated as a separate candidate.
>>
>> - the candidate receiving the greatest number of votes wins.
>>
>>
>> * Alternately, the preceding process is used to select those who will
>> be candidates for election. Then, after these candidates are
>> presented to the voters, an election determines the winner.
>>
Condorcet can tolerate a bunch of candidates without getting lost.
>>
>> * The purpose of the method is to ...
>>
>> - make candidacy available beyond the incumbent power structure.
By asking for only voter nominations in reasonable quantities.
>>
>> - replace candidates who want a particular job with candidates the
>> people want in that job.
BETTER find candidates willing to work. Does address people's desires.
>>
>> - allow the election of good and competent candidates.
That was allowed. What is improved is quality of candidate pool.
>>
>> - favor candidates who are preferred by one voter and attract the
>> support of many voters.
I say nomination should show preference by more than one - NEEDED to get a
candidate pool worth studying.
>>
>> - eliminate the need for a candidate to fight his way against
>> challengers.
Disagreed - this should usually get a pool with more challengers.
>>
>> - be fair to minorities.
>
>
> Yes, I tried to support this type of targets to meet the needs that you
> might have.
>
>> * The challenge of the method is to insure that the person elected is
>> the best for the job.
>
>
> In summary, yes, that is what the rules could look like. I'm very
> flexible to what kind of set of rules each user would adopt. The rules
> also could be much simpler than including all the listed possibilities.
> My intention is just to show various paths that could be used to make
> the basic random vote method more applicable to the needs.
This puzzles. You need ONE set of rules for all to understand, with a few
details such as number of nominators for a nominee tailored to getting
reasonable quantities of candidates.
>
>> You also mentioned the possibility of direct democracy and delegable
>> proxy. As to these ...
>>
No comment by me.
>
>> Will the lists become unwieldy if the process extends beyond the
>> local community? For example, the number of candidates nominated for
>> governor of my state could be immense.
>
I addressed this above.
>
>> Does nominating someone for public office suggest a beneficial
>> interest in that person's election? If so, should we be concerned?
>
>
> I'm not sure if I caught the point, but I don't see a big difference
> between different candidates here.
>
>> When the list of candidates for a given office is published by the
>> election coordinator, will the candidates campaign for the office for
>> which they have been nominated? For example, when you mentioned that
>> candidates would be "presented to the voters" does that mean they
>> will campaign?
>
I say above that this list should include a resume by each candidate.
While this basic campaigning is optional, I would not prohibit other
campaigning for candidates who choose to do such.
>
> I think it s impossible to avoid all campaigning. Maybe the rules for
> campaigning are separate. In many cases I think it would be useful to
> limit the amount of campaigning to avoid the one-dollar-one-vote
> effect. One could e.g. set a fixed limit on the campaign costs.
If there are to be limits, scale them according to the office.
>
> My interest when talking about presenting the candidates to the voters
> was in avoiding a situation where there are so many candidates that the
> voters are not able to analyze the long list of candidates well enough
> to understand who would be good and who would be bad. Many votes could
> be lost. Or only some public figures would have a chance. In this way
> the regular good people would at least be brought to the attention of
> their potential voters before the final decision.
Back to governor's race as extreme example, with even a reasonable
quantity of candidates, voters need some clue as to what the various
candidates may offer.
>
>> At the moment, my grasp of your suggestion does not allow a firm
>> opinion. Can we flesh out parts of it with greater detail?
>
>
> I presented the proposal as a family of methods that might use
> different rules in different ways. In order to go to greater detail
> (maybe to lesser amount of details too) one could take some example
> situation and example method. We could for example see what kind of
> rules could be used in electing ten people of a city to act as trusted
> citizens monitoring the criminal interrogations of the police.
>
> There is probably no reason to require any specific skills => normal
> people will do. Maybe all volunteers can be expected to have good
> intentions => no need to control the candidates from this point of view
> either. Maybe we could require some width of support => let's say three
> support votes needed. We could allow voters to list e.g. three
> candidates. After collecting the ballots (and counting the number of
> support votes for each candidate) we would pick random ballots and
> elect the first candidate (who has not been elected yet) with at least
> three support votes overall from each ballot. If we don't know if
> someone has volunteered we could call him and check (and move to the
> next candidate or ballot if the answer is negative). If all citizens
> can be uniquely identified with good enough probability (in unclear
> cases the previous ten elected citizens may interpret the intended
> meaning of the vote) there may be no need for a formal nomination process.
Good intentions? Desirable, but attempting non-destructive control could,
itself, be destructive.
Random ballots? I admit to choking at the thought:
If the voters identify a winner, that should end it.
If the leading candidates are near a tie then it matters little
which wins, but I would go for chance only on a true tie.
>
> This method is quite simple and straight forward and might work well
> enough for this simple task. Just one example among many.
For most elections I am for Condorcet, which permits:
Bullet voting, suitable when a voter does not care beyond naming a
first choice.
Ranking all liked candidates above those liked less.
Ranking all candidates, suitable for ranking hated enemies at the end.
>
> Juho
--
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Dave Ketchum 108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY 13827-1708 607-687-5026
Do to no one what you would not want done to you.
If you want peace, work for justice.
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