Re: Voting system for elections

On 7/18/16 9:29 AM, Ian Jackson wrote:
> As has been discussed here many times previously, Condorcet is a bad
> system for multi-seat elections. Rather than electing a board whose
> composition reflects, proportionately, the views of the electorate,
> the majoritarian or consensus candidates (as applicable) will sweep
> the board.

I have a concern about this:

If, for example, there were an issue that sharply divides the SPI
membership say 66% to 33%, an STV election would elect 6 board members
in favor of A and 3 in favor of B, whereas a Condorcet election might
elect 9 in favor of A. The problem with the STV board would be that
they would constantly disagree with each other instead of getting work done.

An analogy in "real" politics is: A parliament should generally reflect
the population's wishes proportionally, but the executive is generally
drawn only from one or a few aligned parties.

Maybe this isn't a problem in practice, or maybe you/some actually want
to the board to work that way, but I think we should consider what the
nature of the board is or should be, and which election method best
realizes that.