At 08:10 PM 1/26/2010, Juho wrote:
The scenario that you described requires some goodwill among the voters.
That's correct. We seem to imagine that better voting systems will produce better results even if people continue to lack goodwill and cooperative spirit. It's a fantasy. There are structural changes that will encourage the seeking of consensus, but voting methods are only a tiny part of that.
If the competition is really strong then one could expect the 70% of the voters not to even mention the 99% approved candidate in the polls if they already know that they have 70% majority behind their first preference.
That's right, if they don't care about alienating 30% of the members of the organization, an organization that breaks down and becomes dysfunctional if people fight with each other and fail to respect the need for unity.
On the other hand the availability of reliable poll information may reduce the competitive spirit of the election.
What you do is to poll, and allowing approval polling is simple, nobody even though of suggesting that people only vote once in the show of hands. The question wasn't a preference question, it was "would you consider this choice acceptable." The poll wasn't going to decide anything, and this was a group of people whose culture facilitated and encouraged complete honesty, and the whole thing would become a stupid waste of time without the honesty, it was fundamental and crucial, or even more than a stupid waste of time, positively harmful.
Some part of strategic voting and strong competitiveness is based on the fear of unknown and lack of understanding of the viewpoints of the others. If all take a defensive attitude from the start and paint all their competitors with dark colours then there may never be any consensus.
Right.
In typical political environments good poll information including approvals and ratings is thus a positive thing, but it may still be necessary to assume that strong competition is not uncommon in the actual election and prepare for that.
Yes. I do suggest Bucklin. Most voters will bullet vote, it's very likely, but, then, use it as a primary in a runoff system, which provides a very specific meaning to the lowest approved rank: I prefer the election of this candidate to holding a runoff. It's an absolute, sincere vote that is strategically maximal! Because that is exactly the effect it has, monotonically.
Voters may also understand that a society that makes consensus decisions may be a better place to live in than a society where the current majority always ignores the minorities. And people may vote for parties that support this approach. But also here, it may still be wise to allow the majority to decide when consensus decisions (that cover also the needs of the other side) will be made. In a way we are talking about a "benevolent majority" and the growth of a society towards away from a conflict driven mode.
Majority rule is a crucial foundation for democracy. But if the majority is stupid, it can wreck the place, and everyone is in the minority from time to time. Seeking supermajority approval actually helps everyone, long-term, but there is a tradeoff with efficiency.
Yes, the good part of Range is in the satisfaction measurements. I think the strategy problems are very real in many environments, not just hot air. So one must be careful with Range.
The typical error is in assuming some "strategic" faction which votes sensibly, when everyone else votes in a way that they will regret if they discover the result they cause.
[...]
There is a natural incentive to the two largest groupings to promote this kind of polarization. And a two-party system is a demonstration that such systems may also work reasonably well in practice.
Sometimes, when the social contract is strong and the distance between the two parties is actually not large (i.e., Tweedledum and Tweedledee might be a bit of a good thing!), it works, but sometimes it leads to civil war and genocide, when the polarization becomes too great....
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