I suggested this -- but apparently it's a horrible idea, Uni.

(05-25-2014, 09:36 AM)Tsunamy Wrote: Not to mention, your criteria for judging it -- that the "first preference" of the most voters should win -- is based off of assumption of a two-candidate election. In fact, I'd argue that having someone who may not be first choice of the majority, but rather the second choice of everyone is more of a middle ground solution.

The Condorcet criterion applies to both single and multi winner elections. It's a basic principle that the rankings on the ballots be reflected sensibly in the tally. The person ranked first by a majority of voters should be the first winner. The Borda count doesn't do that. Given enough candidates and varied ballots, we would run into issues. It's very possible for somebody to be elected over another candidate who actually has more support.

This talk of ease is just a red herring. No matter what we do, it will be made easy for voters and the EC. There's no electoral system that is too difficult for the average person to figure out once it's explained. Don't let "ease" result in preferring an inferior solution. Preferential voting isn't hard. Counting preferential ballots isn't hard either.

And for the last time, electing justices into distinct seats is just a terrible idea. We do not have enough participants for it to work. It would be horribly uncompetitive, no matter what spin you put on it.

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GR -- No, it is not an "inferior" system. You're judging it that way based off of a hegemonic and patriarchal point of view. The system that is "best" is the one that works the best for the society as a whole.

And the talk of "ease" is most certainly not a red herring. There's no reason to delve into a more complicated "solution" when a simpler method would be just fine. "Ease" wasn't a factor in the last election and we can all see how well that turned out.

I'm tired of the argument that electing justices into distinct seats is a "terrible" idea. It seems to be garnering more support than the options you've been putting on the table. Most of our elections are "horrible uncompetitive," what's the difference of a few more?

When we don't even have enough candidates to fill 3 Justices anyway, no matter which system we use it'll be "horribly noncompetitive". Why does it matter if we choose between fixed seats and the more complex non-fixed seats? What advantage for competitiveness do we gain?

Tsunamy Wrote:GR -- No, it is not an "inferior" system. You're judging it that way based off of a hegemonic and patriarchal point of view.

I'm not sure what's hegemonic or patriarchal about judging an electoral system based on a very basic criterion that all electoral systems are judged by. Frankly, any system that doesn't result in the most preferred candidate actually being ranked the highest in a tally is an inferior system. That's the reason the Borda count isn't used very often.

I ran sample elections using your proposed method, and several times I ran across scenarios where a less preferred candidates won over a more preferred candidate. That just doesn't make sense to me. Why would we use a system with that type of outcome? If we were discussing a way to elect the delegate, this would be dismissed as a terrible idea.

Tsunamy Wrote:And the talk of "ease" is most certainly not a red herring. There's no reason to delve into a more complicated "solution" when a simpler method would be just fine. "Ease" wasn't a factor in the last election and we can all see how well that turned out.

The point I'm making about ease of use is that none of the options we've discussed are actually difficult at all. It's just an algorithm. You plug in the numbers, follow the instructions, and get your winners. There are myriad websites that do it all for you! In all of the preferential systems we've discussed, the ballots are pretty much identical, so discussing "ease" when it comes to people actually voting is pretty useless.

I don't know why people had such a hard time with the last judicial election. If I had to guess, I'm pretty sure most people just didn't bother to actually think, and decided to list all three available options to them. That's what a few people have admitted to doing. That's not the fault of our electoral system. That's voter error due to not paying attention.

(05-25-2014, 10:33 PM)Unibot Wrote: When we don't even have enough candidates to fill 3 Justices anyway, no matter which system we use it'll be "horribly noncompetitive". Why does it matter if we choose between fixed seats and the more complex non-fixed seats? What advantage for competitiveness do we gain?

The last election we had 4 people running. If we used "fixed seats," then two of those candidates would have been automatically elected, because they would be the only candidates running for the seat. We would need a minimum of 6 candidates for it to even be close to competitive. At least under the current system all candidates are campaigning among each other.

I'm sorry, but there's no scenario where this is a reasonable suggestion. It's a terrible idea that will make our judicial elections simply a race to be one of the first three people nominated. It doesn't matter how noncompetitive our elections are right now due to lack of candidates. Adopting this flawed system would codify zero competitiveness into our judicial elections, which defeats the entire purpose of electing a judiciary in the first place.

Quote:The last election we had 4 people running. If we used "fixed seats," then two of those candidates would have been automatically elected, because they would be the only candidates running for the seat. We would need a minimum of 6 candidates for it to even be close to competitive. At least under the current system all candidates are campaigning among each other.

I'm sorry, but there's no scenario where this is a reasonable suggestion. It's a terrible idea that will make our judicial elections simply a race to be one of the first three people nominated. It doesn't matter how noncompetitive our elections are right now due to lack of candidates. Adopting this flawed system would codify zero competitiveness into our judicial elections, which defeats the entire purpose of electing a judiciary in the first place.

I doubt it makes any difference in practice.

Why don't we put an amendment in place that if an election is uncontested (i.e. there is not enough, or exactly enough, candidates to fill the roles) that the appointments are automatic? We can't do without judges, and if people don't like the candidates, they should stand themselves and at least be somewhat constructive, rather than moaning on the sidelines?

(05-31-2014, 04:55 AM)Sir Pitt Wrote: Why don't we put an amendment in place that if an election is uncontested (i.e. there is not enough, or exactly enough, candidates to fill the roles) that the appointments are automatic? We can't do without judges, and if people don't like the candidates, they should stand themselves and at least be somewhat constructive, rather than moaning on the sidelines?

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we have this. The only problem is that if we have two candidates and RON, we end up with a second election.

If that's the way things work, I propose an amendment to change it. Whether we have one or one hundred candidates, I think the three who ultimately fill the seats need to be legitimized by the Assembly.

I might have slightly misread Sir's original post. As it stands now, if there is no one to run, the Cabinet appoints someone.

I don't think there's a way around that. If people don't want to run, we can't make them.