To take an American example - if we had the Austrialian system in place we would have ended with Gore not Bush as president - provide Nader voter made Gore their second choice. But if 2/3rds of the Nader votes had made McRenolds their second choice, and Gore their third, and one third had made Bush their second choice, then Bush would have still gotten in under the Australian system.

I'm not sure I'm following you. Are you saying that it would've taken every Nader voter ranking Gore above Bush to change the result? Or that it makes a difference whether the two-thirds (say) who prefer Gore over Bush put Gore above mcReynolds too? If the latter, I don't think that's true. Assuming Nader and McReynolds had less primary votes combined than either Bush or Gore, each vote for one of them will wind up going to whichever candidate out of Bush and Gore the voter ranked higher. That is to say, "1. Nader, 2. Gore, 3. Bush, 4. McReynolds" will wind up against the same candidate (Gore) as if the ranking was "1. Nader, 2. McReynolds, 3. Gore, 4. Bush".

Note from the AEC website:

"8.4 Members of the House of Representatives are elected on the basis of an absolute majority system. The first preference votes recorded for each candidate are counted. If any candidate receives more than 50 per cent of the first preference votes, that candidate is immediately elected. Whether or not a candidate is elected on first preference votes, the counting continues. Candidates with the fewest votes are excluded in turn and second and later preferences on their ballot papers are distributed. A candidate who receives an absolute majority of votes during the exclusion process is elected. The process of excluding candidates and distributing preferences continues until only two candidates remain in the count. (See paras 9.27-9.28 and Appendix G for a description of the House of Representatives scrutiny.)" [Emphases mine; for Bush to beat Gore in any electorate, an absolute majority of voters would've had to signal they preferred Bush to Gore specifically.]

Or to put it another way, under the Austrialian system, you can vote for what you really want as your first choice. But you had better still think strategically, about what can win, rather than just what you want, when you make your second choice.

This is still true, where the second and third candidates are more evenly matched. Where Doug's preferences decide whether Bill or Carol will be next eliminated, and most of Carol's primary votes would go to Bill but most of Bill's primary votes would go to Amanda, then it may theoretically be that making Bill your second choice after Doug makes it more likely Amanda will be defeated, even if you prefer Carol to Bill. (Was that confusing enough?)

It doesn't come up often, of course. Australia is also effectively a two-party nation, and it's rare that a third candidate has much of a look-in; but it can happen. Strategic preference issues became more closely scrutinised after the rise of Pauline Hanson's One Nation, but this was more closely tied to the party recommendations. (The argument was over whether One Nation should be ranked last, or second last with the other main party in last place.)

I think what Katie was saying is that the proposal we are voting for now only allows for simple majority votes. So if we then use the Borda method, we aren't doing what we said we would.

Heh. That makes me even happier I voted against a simple majority. I confess I didn't think about it too carefully beyond the two-candidate situation, but yeah, if you have several possible options, a simple majority as per the American model would let an option win even if only a quarter of voters preferred it to a specific one of the other options. (That's basically how the Republican referendum in Australia was defeated.)

Wait ... I thought you were pro-whateverwordwe'reusingforwhatever?

Yeah, pro small thingamahoozies, so 8 yays and 3 nays would work nicely. Would we have to post in Swahilian?

Cereal:

And FTR I'm getting Borda dis.

Even though I keep talking-- I agree with Cindy and think we should wait until we see if we are even going to vote!

The only conning I did is if "simple majority" means something completely different than "the side with the most votes wins, even if it's 2 votes to 1."

I don't know what a Borda method is, and didn't even read the link, because all of this is making me kind of sick.

Wolfram I prefer Condercent or Australian over Borda. Like I said, Borda has the same problem as first past the post - possible split votes leading to least preferred option winning.

And Billytea - I was making a hypothetical case. The Australian system has the possiblity of requiring strategic voting in close races.

And see my argument above; I don't think simple majority does rule out the Australian system or Condercet system. At most it rules out the Borda system (which I don't favor anyway) and I think I made a very strong case that it does not rule out that.

Hi -- longtime lurker here (I've posted a couple of times). I've been reading the discussion about requiring a quorum, and, even though it seems like everyone is sick of the topic, wanted to suggest a variant. A quorum, it seems to me, is usually required to make sure that there are enough people to make the vote "fair", instead of waiting until you and your three cronies are the only ones around. That doesn't seem too likely with the on-line, three-day voting period.

On the other hand, you can require a minimum number of "yes" votes -- say 10 for the sake of this examples -- for any change, in addition to requiring a majority (or super-majority, such as 60%). So if someone proposes ANDREW RULZ as a thread, and 9 people vote yes, it fails whether 50 people vote no or only 1 person does. The guarantees that some minimum number of people want whatever is being proposed (and gets rid of the question "do abstentions count towards the quorum?"). You'd need to settly on the minimum number needed to effect change, and it might need to be different for different situations.

Sorry to put this out there long after everyon is sick of the topic... back to lurking for me now.

And Billytea - I was making a hypothetical case. The Australian system has the possiblity of requiring strategic voting in close races.

Yeah, so more like the Amanda/Bill/Carol/Doug thing? I was a bit confused by the use of a real-world eg, because the gap between Bush/Gore and the other candidates meant strategic voting wouldn't have affected that election. The Australian system would've boiled down to "Who do you like better: Bush or Gore?"

(Not for your benefit, I know you understand that.)

And see my argument above; I don't think simple majority does rule out the Australian system or Condercet system. At most it rules out the Borda system (which I don't favor anyway) and I think I made a very strong case that it does not rule out that.

I think you're probably right, though is it has some particular meaning in the US voting system and that's how most people read it, it may go the other way. In any case, I also agree that this can all wait until after we see what the vote result is. (I just like talking about the Australian system, really.)

Cindy I was not accusing you of conning. I was making a strong argument against a particular interpetation. And unfortunately it is now relevent because an argument is being made that voting for a simple majority rules out certain possiblilties that I don[t think it does. I think any counting system in which any option that wins 50%+1 wins the vote (providing any quorum requirements are met) , is allowed under simple majority. Simple does not mean (uncomplicated, but 50%+1. I'll shut up now, but I honestly don't think anything I said was actually sickening. And please, i was not accusing you of conning us - I was pointing out the problems with a particular interpetation - it was a reduction absurdum. If you interpet it this way, Cindy conned us. Cindy conning us is aburd. Therefor that interpetation is not correct.

The only conning I did is if "simple majority" means something completely different than "the side with the most votes wins, even if it's 2 votes to 1."

I don't know if it's good or bad to re-state some fundamentals here but just for the record -- yes, Cindy "simple majority" does mean "the side with the most votes wins" but we're also discussing another issue about whether three votes in total is enough.

If 100 people vote, then a simple majority is 51 votes or more. More than half.

But what we're also going to have to sort out is, what if 100 people don't vote?

Is a vote in which ten people take part valid?

So the majority issue is, would fifty-one out of 100 be enough, or would we require 66 or 75 out of a hundred?

The voter turnout issue is, how many votes in total do we need?