Welcome David, Richard Fobes wrote: > An excellent summary of the collective view of most participants > here is our recently created "Declaration of Election-Method Reform > Advocates". ...
Mind you, most of us have yet to agree to this collective view. That doesn't mean it's necessarily wrong or anything, but it may yet prove to be! I just mention this to show that we're still, for the most part, open minded on the question. :-) -- Michael Allan Toronto, +1 416-699-9528 http://zelea.com/ Richard Fobes wrote: > Welcome! > > An excellent summary of the collective view of most participants here is > our recently created "Declaration of Election-Method Reform Advocates". > It doesn't yet have a permanent home; a temporary copy is here: > > http://www.votefair.org/declaration.html > > Your views overlap with many of ours, yet you will meet some resistance > to some of your positions. The above Declaration will quickly convey > which areas are which. > > Please ask any specific questions. > > Richard Fobes > > > On 10/30/2011 6:33 PM, David L Wetzell wrote: > > I just joined the list. > > > > I'm a political economist turned electoral enthusiast. > > > > My views are: > > 1. All modern democracies are unstable mixtures of popular democracy and > > plutocracy. > > 2. Electoral Reform is meant to bolster the former. > > 3. There are two basic types of election rules: winner-take-all (all > > single-seat elections or non-proportional multi-seat) elections and > > winner-doesn't-take-all (proportional or quasi-proportional > > multi-seat) elections. We need to use both. Right now, in the US, we > > need most > > to push for more American forms of PR. > > 4. American forms of PR don't challenge the fact we have a two-party > > dominated system. They tend to have 3-5 seats. They increase > > proportionality > > and handicap the cut-throat competitive rivalry between the two major > > parties. They give third party dissenters more voice... > > 5. Most alternatives to FPTP are decent and the biases of FPTP tend to > > get reduced over time and place in elections. > > 6. I advocate for FairVote's IRV3. It's got a first-mover and marketing > > advantage in the US, over the infinite number of other single seat > > winner-take-all election rules out there. In a FPTP dominated system, > > there can only be one alternative to FPTP at a time locally. > > 6b. I think that IRV3 can be improved upon by treating the up to three > > ranked choices as approval votes in a first round to limit the number of > > candidates to three then the rankings of the three can be sorted into 10 > > categories and the number of votes in each category can be summarized at > > the precinct level. > > 7. Moreover, I believe that the number of political issues, their > > complexity, matters of character bound the rationality of voters and > > make choices among candidates inherently fuzzy options. So there's no > > cardinal or ordinal utility for any candidate out there and all > > effective rankings of candidates used to determine the Condorcet > > Candidate are ad hoc. > > 8. This is why I believe a lot of the debate over the best single seat > > election rule is unproductive. > > 9. What matters more is to get a better balance between the two basic types. > > 10. Winner-doesn't-take-all elections are preferable for "more local" > > elections that o.w. tend to be chronically non-competitive. > > > > I think that's probably enough for now. > > I look forward to dialogues with y'all (I lived in TX from 3-9 then > > moved to MN, where my father became a professor of Mathematics and > > Statistics at the private liberal arts college where he met my mother, > > Bethel University.). > > > > dlw ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info