Earlier I make the point that FPTP should not be used because it does
not let voters completely express their desires.
Here I add that Runoffs can try to recover from FPTP's failures, but
not necessarily succeed.
Knowing that Runoffs get used with other methods, where they may not
deserve their expense, I hint that this topic needs more thought than
I cover in detail here.
Now, on to your thoughts:
On Dec 6, 2009, at 7:49 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:
Dave Ketchum wrote:
Runoffs: Essential with FPTP unless one candidate receives a
majority vote, for there is too great a chance for best-liked to
not receive the most votes. Top-two runoff weakness is the chance
for FPTP to have seen true best-liked as third. Of less value for
methods that let voters better express their desires.
You might want to add that the second round of the runoff is
strategy free, as there are only two candidates. Thus a runoff may
have advantages beyond other methods if people strategize a lot
(e.g. in small council elections). The strategy would then involve
making the "wrong" top two survive to the second round, so the first
round would have to use a method that is fairly resistant to strategy.
"second round" seems to me to confuse more than help - but lets ignore
that for now.
Runoffs are simply a component of an election, so their not affecting
strategy problems in other components matters little.
One (complicated) idea I've suggested earlier is to have a runoff
with two Condorcet methods: the first surviving candidate is the
winner of a good "honest voters'" method, while the second surviving
candidate is the winner of a burial-resistant (though perhaps
nonmonotonic, etc) method. If the voters are honest, the first
winner prevails; if the voters strategize heavily, at least they can
get no worse than what the second method provides.
A major goal is to make the election both understandable to voters and
requiring minimum effort from them.
What may not get said enough is that tempting a group to strategize
can tempt other groups to compete - for hopeless results.
It's probably overkill for a public election, but might be useful in
small or intermediate size scenarios.
----
Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
