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This is a cool thought, but I think it's a bad idea to use it in actual elections. The author failed to really address the "crazy minority party" concern. His a

by lyudmil 15y ago

This is a cool thought, but I think it's a bad idea to use it in actual elections. The author failed to really address the "crazy minority party" concern. His argument was that, while his system would give such people a chance in getting elected, it's only fair that it did since they indeed had a constituency and their chance of winning is proportional to their constituency size. He adds, "The fact that I consider someone to be utterly despicable doesn’t give me the right to disenfranchise them." I'm not sure the point is valid. I certainly believe in freedom of speech and I accept my duty to protect the right of even the most offensive people to be heard (in fact, they should receive a greater degree of protection). However, by supporting a voting system that gives them no chance of being elected before they convince enough people for their ideas to be considered mainstream I'm not disenfranchising them since I'm not denying them the right to vote. I'm just marginalizing them, which is the proper response to all crazy claims and ideas. I offer two hypotheticals in support for those who still feel I'm infringing on someone's liberties by writing what I did: (1) Suppose we live in a country that's a nuclear power. Suppose also there is a fascist party completely bent on nuclear war with Israel (for example) in our country and that they have a constituency that amounts to 1% of the electorate. Suppose nuclear war means total destruction on a global scale. I'll argue that giving those people a chance at forming a government is immoral and, in fact, disenfranchises everyone outside of your country since they have to control over who you elect, yet they suffer the horrible consequences. (2) Suppose my party ran on a platform of dismantling democratic institutions (including elections of any sort) and vowed to distribute the majority of resources to my constituents, basically re-instituting feudalism. Random selection would give us the opportunity and the power to dismantle the democracy it was meant to be the engine of. It would also technically make it illegal for other countries to intervene, since our "feudal" government would be democratically elected.

innes 15y ago
"Suppose ... there is a fascist party ... and that they have a constituency that amounts to 1% of the electorate" Given a legislature of 600 representatives, a party with 1% support would have a vanishingly small chance of winning a majority.
- lyudmil 15y ago
  Even if you consider running consistently over a long period of time? Also, my hypotheticals were meant to be such that you wouldn't take even vanishingly small chances. If you are willing to, then I failed in my argument.
  - william42 15y ago
    The chance of a party with 1% support getting 300 or more seats out of 600 is roughly on the order of 0.04^300.* This number is so small that you're probably better off worrying about a literal biological virus that turns people into fascists. *The factor of 4 comes from the rate of growth of the central binomial coefficients.
DRMacIver 15y ago
It's worth noting that the consequences of random election are not "the crazy party gets into power". It's "the crazy party gets a couple of seats". The chances of someone with even 5% of the election are astronomically low (http://twitter.com/johnmyleswhite/status/62863260566827008 http://twitter.com/johnmyleswhite/status/62863260566827008 - the probability of someone with a 5% minority getting the majority over the course of 50 elections). The likely scenario here is that your crazy party gets 1, maybe 2, seats at the worst and promptly demonstrate themselves to be incompetent tools, spoiling their chances of reelection.
- lyudmil 15y ago
  I don't think that's what the author was describing. I think it was a case of everyone gets a vote, then we pick someones vote at random.
IsaacL 15y ago
This is an issue with most (all?) PR systems. The author's argument was not that crazy minority's should get into power, but they should at least be represented in the political system (Parliament or whatever). They should at least have a chance to air their views on the national level. I think this has two side-benefits: one is that such crazy minorities are often shown as incompetent when given such 'legitimate' representation; the other is that it removes their PR boost of being "downtrodden outcasts".
- lyudmil 15y ago
  With regard to your first point, I don't think that's what the author is describing: "Once all of the votes have been cast, you pick one voter at random and use their choice" It's not a matter of representation, which would not only be OK with me, but necessary if we claim freedom of speech. The author is describing a random dictatorial mandate weighed based on constituency size. Maybe I'm completely misunderstanding this...

by lyudmil 15y ago

innes 15y ago

"Suppose ... there is a fascist party ... and that they have a constituency that amounts to 1% of the electorate" Given a legislature of 600 representatives, a party with 1% support would have a vanishingly small chance of winning a majority.

lyudmil 15y ago
Even if you consider running consistently over a long period of time? Also, my hypotheticals were meant to be such that you wouldn't take even vanishingly small chances. If you are willing to, then I failed in my argument.
- william42 15y ago
  The chance of a party with 1% support getting 300 or more seats out of 600 is roughly on the order of 0.04^300.* This number is so small that you're probably better off worrying about a literal biological virus that turns people into fascists. *The factor of 4 comes from the rate of growth of the central binomial coefficients.

DRMacIver 15y ago

It's worth noting that the consequences of random election are not "the crazy party gets into power". It's "the crazy party gets a couple of seats". The chances of someone with even 5% of the election are astronomically low (http://twitter.com/johnmyleswhite/status/62863260566827008 http://twitter.com/johnmyleswhite/status/62863260566827008 - the probability of someone with a 5% minority getting the majority over the course of 50 elections). The likely scenario here is that your crazy party gets 1, maybe 2, seats at the worst and promptly demonstrate themselves to be incompetent tools, spoiling their chances of reelection.

lyudmil 15y ago
I don't think that's what the author was describing. I think it was a case of everyone gets a vote, then we pick someones vote at random.

IsaacL 15y ago

This is an issue with most (all?) PR systems. The author's argument was not that crazy minority's should get into power, but they should at least be represented in the political system (Parliament or whatever). They should at least have a chance to air their views on the national level. I think this has two side-benefits: one is that such crazy minorities are often shown as incompetent when given such 'legitimate' representation; the other is that it removes their PR boost of being "downtrodden outcasts".

lyudmil 15y ago
With regard to your first point, I don't think that's what the author is describing: "Once all of the votes have been cast, you pick one voter at random and use their choice" It's not a matter of representation, which would not only be OK with me, but necessary if we claim freedom of speech. The author is describing a random dictatorial mandate weighed based on constituency size. Maybe I'm completely misunderstanding this...