Re: Condorcet Voting and Supermajorities (Re: [CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT] Disambiguation of 4.1.5)
On Wed, Nov 29, 2000 at 02:53:15AM -0500, Raul Miller wrote:
> > A.6(3) A supermajority requirement of n:m for an option A means that
> > when votes are considered which indicate option A as a better
> > choice than some other option B, the number of votes in favor
> > of A are multiplied by m/n.
On Wed, Nov 29, 2000 at 07:26:01PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> This gives different results to the current system when two options on
> a single ballot would require different supermajorities to pass.
>
> Please reread:
> Message-ID: <[🔎] 20001124100724.A18834@azure.humbug.org.au>
> Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2000 10:07:24 +1000
>
> and:
> Message-ID: <[🔎] 20001124144439.A20871@azure.humbug.org.au>
> Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2000 14:44:40 +1000
>
> for the explanation.
Eh? All I see is that my proposal is less ambiguous than the current
constitution for this kind of case.
[Those specific messages are where we were talking at cross purposes --
I thought we were talking about alternative final votes, and you had
intended that we talk about an amendment an a final vote. This kind of
misunderstanding on my part isn't something that you fix by setting the
structure of the constitution.]
> A much fairer supermajority requirement would simply be:
>
> A.6(3) A supermajority of N:M for an option A is met when the number of
> votes ranking A higher than the default option, divided by N is
> greater than than the number of votes ranking the default option
> higher than A.
So, a 3:1 supermajority is required to pass a constitutional amendment,
101 ballots YES:NO
100 ballots NO:YES
[No one wants to talk about it any more, and the results are almost
even.]
Under your rule, the constitution would be amended, even though almost
as many people voted NO as YES.
What do you imagine the purpose of the supermajority is? To encorage
further discussion?
Now, if you're trying to say that my version has some ambiguity about
it, well.. that might be true. But I'm not quite seeing it, yet.
> However it's not clear what should happen when the clear winner of
> a set of options doesn't meet its supermajority requirement, yet
> a loser (with a different supermajority requirement) does. It's
> similarly unclear what should happen if the winner doesn't meet its
> supermajority requirments, but some other member of the Smith set
> does.
My version makes that clear. And, I'll assert: it's reasonable
to interpret the current constitution in that fashion.
Your above reference documents don't really deal with that assertion,
all they talk about is what happens if something like a constitutional
amendment ballot is treated by a sequence of at least on amendment ballots
followed by a final ballot. My version of A.6 still allows for this
(obviously, since that's an A.3 issue, not an A.6 issue).
> I would suggest something to the effect of:
>
> * Reduce to the Smith Set
> * Eliminate options that don't meet the supermajority requirement
> * If none left -> default option wins
> * If one left -> it wins
> * If many left, use some tie-breaker, eg STV, Tideman, Schulze
This directly contradicts the last sentence of A.6(7). Do you have some
reason for this contradiction?
Thanks,
--
Raul
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