EAC - Voluntary Voting System Guidelines

Name : | Danny Kleinman
Organization : | N/A
Post Date : | 9/30/2005
General Comments
Comment : | Here, I suggest, are some desirable criteria for such a voting system. (6) Condorcet. Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat (1743-1794), the Marquis de Condorcet, was a great French philosopher and mathematician who formulated what came to be called the Condorcet Criterion. When you think about it, the Condorcet Criterion is obvious: If, among a given set of candidates, there is a particular candidate who would outpoll each of his rivals head-to-head in a two-candidate election, that candidate must win. Conceivably, there may not be any “Condorcet candidate” in an election. As bridge players, you have experienced “round robins” among three teams in which Team A trounces Team B, Team B trounces Team C, yet Team C trounces Team A. A similar phenomenon is conceivable in voting. It is conceivable, for example, that in two-candidate elections, McCain would defeat Gore, Gore would defeat Bradley, yet Bradley would defeat McCain. A widely-quoted piece of advice from S.J. Simon’s delightful book “Why You Lose at Bridge” urges bridge players to seek: “The best result possible. Not the best possible result.” The placement of the word “possible” before or after the word “result” doesn’t really distinguish the two meanings. I would rephrase Simon for clarity: “The best result attainable. Not the best result conceivable.” There is a wide gap between what can be conceived and what can occur realistically. Like the outcome cited for a round-robin team game in bridge, the outcome “McCain defeats Gore, Bradley defeats McCain, Gore defeats Bradley” is conceivable. Unlike the bridge outcome, however, that electoral outcome simply can’t happen in any practical sense. When you think about it, you’ll see why: The results of the three head-to-head contests are not independent from each other. Rather, they reflect political views that can be mapped, roughly, along a “political spectrum” (generally conceived as running from “left” to “right” even if nobody can define these terms precisely). I’m going to draw such a map for you. Besides the Presidential candidates already mentioned, I’ll include Harry Browne (a Libertarian candidate who advocates a much smaller role for government than any of the others) on the right and David McReynolds (a Socialist candidate who doesn‘t appear on the ballot in some states) on the left, to provide a truly broad spectrum. McReynolds Nader Gore Bradley McCain Bush Buchanan Browne Now each voter, besides having a most-preferred candidate, has a candidate he prefers next, plus a third choice, a fourth choice, and so forth, though there may be ties, especially for last and near-last choices (a voter might think McReynolds, Nader, Buchanan and Browne equally abhorrent, for example). Like the candidates, voters will have places on the political spectrum. Supposing that I’ve mapped the spectrum correctly (though if some other map were more accurate, trivial changes in my examples would be necessary), Democrats will lie to the right of Nader and the left of McCain, Republicans will lie to the right of Bradley and the left of Browne, and “independents” will lie to the right of Bradley and the left of McCain in the center of the political spectrum. With only rare exceptions, voters will prefer candidates roughly in the order of the “distance” between the candidates’ positions on the political spectrum and their own. (Note, however, that I haven’t attempted to draw the political spectrum to scale. There may, for example, be very little “distance” between Gore and Bradley. Moreover, any scale would be highly subjective. Ardent Nader supporters perceive very little “distance” between Gore and Bush but a wide chasm between Gore and Nader, while “left-wing” Democrats perceive only a short distance between Gore and Nader but a great gap between Gore and Bush. There being no objective measuring rod, I wouldn’t attempt to say which scale, if either, is accurate.) Thus (again, with only rare exceptions) you won’t find Nader supporters preferring Bush to Gore, though you may find some (those strongly opposed to socialism) preferring Bush to McReynolds. Likewise, you won’t find Bush supporters preferring Bradley to McCain, though you may find some preferring Browne to McCain.