Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 6, 2019 16:30 UTC (Fri) by marcH (subscriber, #57642)
In reply to: Debian votes on init systems by smurf
Parent article: Debian votes on init systems

> Voting systems for multi-seat organizations like parliaments are fundamentally different from single-winner elections

Much less than you think because:
- the local election of each member of parliament can and often does work at the local level exactly like the global election of a global president
- the election of a president can and often does start with electing a parliament or something similar to it.

So they have many bugs in common.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_system

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 6, 2019 18:30 UTC (Fri) by smurf (subscriber, #17840) [Link] (3 responses)

> - the local election of each member of parliament can and often does work at the local level exactly like the global election of a global president

That's a bug, not a feature, because it invites gerrymandering and/or does not guarantee that my vote has the same weight as yours.

- the election of a president can and often does start with electing a parliament or something similar to it.

Also a bug because all too often the politics of party X are fine but party Y's presidential candidate is a more reasonable choice, not to mention that requiring president and parliament to actually find a compromise ultimately makes for better politics. IMHO and assuming that both sides aren't composed of hardliners, of course.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 6, 2019 21:36 UTC (Fri) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (2 responses)

> > - the local election of each member of parliament can and often does work at the local level exactly like the global election of a global president

> That's a bug, not a feature, because it invites gerrymandering

I said nothing about any particular voting system there, so it's not clear what invites gerrymandering. I guess you're suggesting parliament elections should always be global, no local representative? That's extremely rare because people generally want a local representative, someone they vaguely identify with and who lives not too far (at least part time) so he or she understands them better. Local representatives spend (surprise) an inordinate amount of their time interacting with their voters, at least in the countries I know about.

> and/or does not guarantee that my vote has the same weight as yours.

Democracy doesn't imply all votes have the same weight, that's a frequent misconception. There's at least one specific, extremely common and well documented reason for that: avoid dilution of smaller territories. Again the real question is "how much?" (more weight than others) but you seem in need of a binary answer ("bug or feature").

By the way you can easily make sure circonscriptions are all about the same size and there are also "middle ground" systems where you vote for a whole list of people in an region. Anything's possible when you leave the world of binary answers.

> > the election of a president can and often does start with electing a parliament or something similar to it.

> Also a bug because [handwaving]

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 6, 2019 22:50 UTC (Fri) by pebolle (guest, #35204) [Link] (1 responses)

Why should Debian's voting system be an example of the most democratic system yet implemented? Or even try to come close to that? For the few hundreds or thousands of people eligible to vote any system that yields a quick decision should do.

Debian votes on init systems

Posted Dec 10, 2019 10:14 UTC (Tue) by yoe (guest, #25743) [Link]

What you want is a system that implements the *correct* answer, quickly, where you should see "correct" as "whatever option would receive the most support amongst all Debian developers".

The current system has that property.