Re: Condorcet Voting and Supermajorities (Re: [CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT] Disambiguation of 4.1.5)
[second pass, talking about the situation as a whole, rather than
focussing on voting mechanics.]
On Thu, Nov 30, 2000 at 02:00:57PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> It's unambiguous, but it has undesirable properties (ie, as well as voting
> in a particular way, supporters of one side or the other have a stake in
> how the issue is voted on also, since one way makes one group more likely
> to win, and another way makes another group more likely to win).
>
> To be specific: supposing no one actually minds getting rid of non-free,
> everyone wants to see it moved off the mirrors, in general, but there is a
> reasonable minority of people who would rather see it kept on some out of
> the way machine, just for old times sake.
>
> In the N+1 vote system, the votes go like:
> 60 Remove, Move, Further Discussion
> 40 Move, Remove, Further Discussion
> Remove wins, and the final vote is:
> 100 Yes, Further Discussion, No
> and Remove wins.
Given your assumptions, correct.
> If, however, some of the 40 people connive together privately, and
> convince the secretary to decide the issue in a single vote, using
> your interpretation of the supermajority clause, they vote instead goes
> something like:
> 60 Remove, Move, Further Discussion, Do Nothing
> 40 Move, Remove, Further Discussion, Do Nothing
> and the results are scaled to:
> Remove dominates Further Discussion & Do Nothing, 33.3 to 0
> Move dominates Further Discussion & Do Nothing, 100 to 0
> Move dominates Remove, 40 to 20
> and, the 40 people who prefered Move rejoice having won the vote.
Oh, shudder, a less drastic result occurs because of these "conniving"
people.
Of course the same thing might happen if these 40 people "connive"
together to set up an out of the way server to preserve non-free.
> Surely you agree that a minority of people being able to subvert the
> resolution procedure to get what they want instead of what the majority
> want is a bad thing?
Only if "majority" and "supermajority" are equivalent -- which they're
not.
In this case, your starting assumption is that no one really cares which
option is choosen, as long as one is. It's not "subverting the system"
to get results which correspond with this starting assumption.
--
Raul
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