On Mon, 2004-12-13 at 06:40, jpinkerton wrote:
I am deeply dissappointed with the council for getting into "navel-gazing"
issues like this. The simple voting system of "one man, one vote - most
votes wins" is the way to do all voting the the council will have to deal
with. If the result is a tie, you have a tie-breaker vote.
I do not see this as navel-gazing at all.
In my mind, using Condorcet-CSSD as a voting method is one of the most
straightforward and obviously-correct decisions possible.
With Condorcet-CSSD, you get a consensus answer, and you don't have to
worry about strategic voting--neither of those are true with the
first-past-the-post system.
An example:
Imagine the five-person council deciding for one option among five
different options for something: Options A, B, C, D, and E.
Further imagine that each member most favored a separate one of the five
options--so each option would get one vote.
With first-past-the-post, you'd not get clear winner.
But, knowing the situation, if a couple of the members favored "B" as
their second choice, then they could make the end result be more in
their favor by voting for "B"--a choice that wasn't their sincere first
choice.
However, if the rest of the members hated "B", they would have reason to
vote together for some other option to keep "B" from being
selected--again by casting an insincere ballot.
So we're in the situation where most of the members are having to
out-think the voting system, and cast ballots for something they don't
believe in.
I don't want our council members to be required to lie to us, (in many
ways that's more or less what an insincere ballot is.) And of course I
don't want the membership at large to be required to lie to itself.
However, first past the post requires that: Honesty is not an option,
(or at least it is not necessarily an option), meaning that council
members won't feel as free to vote their sincere preferences as they
would be with Condorcet-CSSD, and the vote results won't reflect answers
as close to the overall consensus of the group.
As I want people to be able to cast honest votes without worrying about
strategy, I am very much in favor of Condorcet-CSSD voting.
--
Mark Shewmaker
mark(_at_)primefactor(_dot_)com