My own favorite suggested system is that whichever candidate gets the most votes in the congressional district gets that vote, plus two for whichever candidate carried the State as a whole.

Well, if you're going to change the system I don't know why you wouldn't go for whomever gets the most votes wins.

That's my vote.

I dislike plurality voting because it's far too easy for, say, an election to have a strong liberal, a liberal-leaning centrist, and a strong conservative, getting 25%, 35%, 40%, respectively, leading to the conservative candidate winning, even though the second choice of many of the people who voted for the strong liberal would probably choose the liberal-leaning centrist as a second choice.

hmm... well, not under the current two party system. we couldn't get into that mess until we had a viable third.

hmm... well, not under the current two party system. we couldn't get into that mess until we had a viable third.

Well, Perot got 19% of the vote in 1992. It's not unreasonable that someone else could get a similar percentage in the future. Or, even in a closer election, if it's split something like 48/49/3, then the second choice of those three percent could be taken into account.

Well, its never going to change... until a democrat loses the popular vote and takes the election.

until a democrat loses the popular vote and takes the election.

Heh.

I don't like straight plurality, either. Way too much chance of several popular candidates splitting the vote. If I were in charge, we'd have some kind of preferential ballot system. Not sure which one, since there's no such thing as a perfect voting system, but just about all of the reasonable ones are preferable to straight plurality.

I agree with you. In legislatures I prefer some form of PR. In offices like the presidency where you are not a electing a multi-member body, I prefer any reasonable form of preference voting. I'd settle for instant run-off, though I can think of a number that would have fewer anomalies. As you say. there is no perfect way of aggregating preferences. This includes markets, by the way. Markets are more than a way of aggregating preferences; but that is one of the functions they perform. And Arrow's theorem applies just as much their preference aggregating function as it does to any other preference aggregating system.

I'm just sort of unclear about how I feel about the Greeting cards for incarceration, complete with "Sorry to hear about your arrest."

This includes markets, by the way. Markets are more than a way of aggregating preferences; but that is one of the functions they perform. And Arrow's theorem applies just as much their preference aggregating function as it does to any other preference aggregating system.

How? Arrow's theorem applies specifically to social welfare functions. It requires a restricted set of options and a single decision. I can see how the general idea of the theorem could apply to other things, but not the theorem itself.