Somehow this thread forgot its primary address - sorry.
On Apr 21, 2010, at 11:04 AM, robert bristow-johnson wrote:
Dave, i think you meant to respond to the EM list, not?
i think you and i are on the same side, i just would not expect
adopting Preferential Voting (be it Condorcet or IRV or something
else) to replace primaries. nor that it should replace primaries.
With Plurality voters can vote for only one. There two candidates
nominated by one party would be seen as clones to any voter wanting to
vote for the party's candidate, being an intolerable handicap to such.
With such as Condorcet voters can vote for multiple candidates,
removing the necessity for primaries.
You seem to see a remaining necessity - which is? I am ready for
parties to do whatever they find most useful in campaign season, and
in preparing for that.
On Apr 20, 2010, at 11:40 PM, Dave Ketchum wrote:
On Apr 20, 2010, at 10:21 AM, robert bristow-johnson wrote:
On Apr 20, 2010, at 1:30 AM, Dave Ketchum wrote:
I would go to Condorcet:
Forget primaries - Condorcet can tolerate clones and voters
should be able to learn related voting.
I would do less runoffs - voters can more completely express
their desires.
there is nothing wrong with primaries (or some other nomination
procedure, like caucus meetings) as long as there are parties.
it's up to the parties to determine how many and who they want to
endorse and put forth for office. for me, the whole issue is with
having more than two viable parties and having other independent
credible candidates. if we cannot get past the two-party system,
we are sometimes stuck with Dumb and Dumber. and that's a lousy
choice. ironically (and sadly), in Burlington our choice in the
repeal election was between Dumb (IRV) and Dumber (40%+ Plurality
or delayed runoff).
Trying for more clarity:
Plurality could not tolerate clones - so parties could not afford
multiple candidates - so primaries have been the way to help
parties to each offer only a single candidate to the main election
- problem of two parties offering clones together has remained.
Methods such as Condorcet can properly attend to clones, thus
eliminating necessity for primaries when such an election method is
used.
You offer the point that, with no necessity as described above, a
party could choose some procedure to reduce its number of
candidates at the main election. Agreed - a possible reason would
be to reduce the candidate count early and concentrate party effort
on remaining candidates.
You want more viable parties - so do I - another reason for wanting
voters to be able to do such as Condorcet's ranking and have it be
effective (another dig at IRV for its way of counting). Note that
I do NOT expect every party to nominate candidates for every race -
that is not worth the effort for some races.
--
r b-j [email protected]
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