I think there are many of us here who prefer some voting system or another over approval voting. I also think there is room for improvement. However, approval voting has a huge advantage in its simplicity and potential for integration into existing infrastructure. This is totally besides the comparisons to make in terms of game theoretical stability with Condorcet methods and expressivity with Score or others.

My thought is that, if we are really going to make progress by consolidating our support behind a single voting system, then realistically, Approval voting fits the bill. That isn’t to say that it should be the final destination for voting reform, but it would absolutely be a major step forward. While IRV is something of a tokenism, Approval would be an actual game changer.

Any thoughts about this are welcome.

This is a minor attempt to modify Condorcet methods in a simple way to become more responsive to broader consensus and supermajority power. It’s sort of like the reverse of STAR and may already be a system that I don’t know the name of. In my opinion, the majority criterion is not necessarily a good thing in itself, since it enables tyrannical majorities to force highly divisive candidates to win elections, which is why I’ve been trying pretty actively to find some way to escape it.

For the moment I will assume that a Condorcet winner exists in every relevant case, and otherwise defer the replacement to another system.

First, find the Condorcet winner, which will be called the “primary” Condorcet winner. Next, find the “secondary” Condorcet winner, which is the Condorcet winner from the same ballots where the primary Condorcet winner is removed everywhere.

Define the Borda difference from B to A on a ballot as the signed difference in their ranks. For example, the Borda difference from B to A on the ballot A>B>C>D is +1, and on C>B>D>A is -2.

If A and B are the primary and secondary Condorcet winners, respectively, then we tally all of the Borda differences from B to A. If the difference is positive (or above some threshold), then A wins, and if it is negative or zero (or not above the threshold), then B wins.

For example, consider the following election:

A>B>C>D [30%]
A>B>D>C [21%]
C>B>D>A [40%]
D>B>C>A [9%]

In this case, A is a highly divisive majoritarian candidate and is the primary Condorcet winner. B is easily seen to be the secondary Condorcet winner. The net Borda difference from B to A is

(0.3+0.21)-2(0.4+0.09)<0

Therefore B would be chosen as the winner in this case.

Some notes about this method:
It certainly does not satisfy the Condorcet criterion, nor does it satisfy the majority criterion. These are both necessarily sacrificed in an attempt to prevent highly divisive candidates from winning the election. It does reduce to majority rule in the case of two candidates, and it does satisfy the Condorcet loser criterion, as well as monotonicity and is clearly polynomial time. It can also be modified to use some other metric in the runoff based on the ballot-wise Borda differences.

Continuing with the above example, suppose that the divisive majority attempts to bury B, which is the top competitor to A.
This will change the ballots to something like

A>C>D>B [30%]
A>D>C>B [21%]
C>B>D>A [40%]
D>B>C>A [9%]

And if the described mechanism is used in this case, we will find instead that C is elected. So burial has backfired if B is "honestly" preferred over C by the divisive majority, and they would have been better off indicating their honest preference and electing B.

And again, suppose that the divisive majority decides to bury the top two competitors to A, namely B and C, below D, keeping the order of honest preference between them. We will find

A>D>B>C [30%]
A>D>B>C [21%]
C>B>D>A [40%]
D>B>C>A [9%]

In this case, the secondary Condorcet winner is D, and the mechanism will in fact elect D, again a worse outcome for the tactical voters.

Finally, suppose that they swap the order of honest preference and vote as

A>D>C>B [30%]
A>D>C>B [21%]
C>B>D>A [40%]
D>B>C>A [9%]

Still this elects D.

As a general description, this method will elect the Condorcet winner unless they are too divisive, in which case it will elect the secondary Condorcet winner, which will necessarily be less divisive. I believe that choosing the runoff to be between the primary and secondary Condorcet winners should maintain much of the stability of Condorcet methods, while the Borda runoff punishes burial and simultaneously addresses highly divisive candidates.

This is a concept I had in mind which may already have been described, although not all of the logistics are necessarily hashed out and there may be issues with it. The idea is described below, but first I want to make a connection to “cake-cutting.” The standard cake-cutting problem is when two greedy agents are going to try to share a cake fairly without an external arbiter. An elegant solution is a simple procedure where one agent is allowed to cut the cake into two pieces, and the other agent is allowed to choose which piece to take for themselves. The first agent will have incentive to cut the cake as evenly as discernible, since the second agent will try to take whichever piece is larger. In the end, neither agent should have any misgivings about their piece of cake.

So this is my attempt to apply that kind of procedure to political parties and representatives. Forgive my lack of education regarding how political parties work:

• There should be a government body that registers political parties and demands the compliance of all political parties to its procedures in order for them to acquire seats for representation;
• (Eyebrow raising, but you might see why...) Every voter must register as a member of exactly one political party in order to cast a ballot (?);
• Each political party A is initially reserved a number of seats in proportion to the number of voters with membership in A; the fraction of seats reserved for A is P(A). however
• For each pair of political parties A and B (where possibly B=A), a fraction of seats totaling P(A~B):=P(A)P(B) will be reserved for candidates nominated by A, and elected by B; these seats will be called ambassador seats from A to B when B is different from A, and otherwise will be called the main platform seats for A;
• Let there be a support quota Q(A~B) for the number of votes needed to elect ambassadors from A to B, and call P(A~B) the ambassador quota of party A for B. If E(A~B) is the fraction of filled A-to-B ambassador seats (as a fraction of all seats), I.e. nominees from A who are actually elected by members of B, then A will only be allowed to elect P(A~A)*min{min{E(A~B)/P(A~B), E(B~A)/P(B~A)}: B not equal to A} of its own nominees. That is, the proportion of reserved main-platform seats that A will be allowed to fill is the least fraction of reserved ambassador seats it fills in relation to every other party, including both the ambassadors from A to other parties, and the ambassadors from other parties to A.

This procedure forces parties to also nominate candidates that compromise between different party platforms in order to obtain seats for any main-platform representatives. If a party fails to meet its quota for interparty compromises, it will lose representation. On the flip side, this set up will also establish high incentives for other parties to compromise with them in order to secure their own main-platform representation. In total, this system would give parties high incentives to compromise with each other and find candidates in the middle ground, which will serve as intermediaries between their main platforms.

Basically, here the outlines indicate seats open to be filled by candidates who are nominated by the corresponding party, and the fill color indicates seats open for election by the corresponding party:

Seats with outlines and fills of non-matching color are ambassador seats, and seats with matching outline and color are main platform seats. In terms of party A, by failing to nominate sufficiently-many candidates who would meet the support quota Q(A~B) to become elected as ambassadors from A to B, or by failing to elect enough ambassadors from B to A, party A restricts its own main platform representation and that of B simultaneously. By symmetry the reciprocal relationship holds from B to A. Therefore all parties are entangled in a dilemma: to secure main-platform representation, parties must nominate a proportional number of candidates who are acceptable enough to other parties to be elected as ambassadors.

To see that all needed seats are filled in the case of a stalemate, where parties refuse to nominate acceptable candidates to other parties and/or refuse to elect ambassadors, the election can be redone with the proportions being recalculated according to the party seats that were actually filled.

The support quotas collectively serve as a non-compensatory threshold to indicate sufficient levels of inter-party compromise. Ordinary PR is identical to PR with ambassador quotas but with all support quotas set to zero, whereby there is no incentive to nominate compromise candidates.

The purpose of this kind of procedure is twofold: firstly, it should significantly enhance the cognitive diversity of representatives, and secondly, it should significantly strengthen more moderate platforms (namely those of the ambassadors) that can serve as intermediaries for compromises between the main platforms of parties. Every party A has a natural “smooth route” from its main platform to the main platform of every other party: The main platform of A should naturally be in communication with ambassadors from A to B, who should naturally communicate with ambassadors from B to A, who should naturally communicate with the main platform of B.

Also, this procedure gives small parties significant bargaining power in securing representation. Large parties will have much more representation to lose than the small parties that are able to secure seats if the small parties refuse to elect any ambassadors, so rationally speaking, large parties should naturally concede to nominating sufficiently many potential ambassadors whose platforms are closer to the main platforms of those small parties. The same rationale holds for the potential ambassadors nominated by small parties, who also should tend to have platforms closer to the main platform of the small party.

Finally, this system creates significant incentives for voters to learn about the platforms of candidates from other parties who stand to reserve seats for representatives.

@lime the point of this post isn’t to argue that approval voting is superior to other methods or that modifications wouldn’t improve approval voting, it’s to point out that despite other methods being potentially superior, standard approval voting is probably the most realistic target for near future steps toward substantially reformed voting.

Unfortunately, more choices does mean the system is more complicated. You can observe that the addition of even a very simple, marginal modification as you suggest already raises questions. Every question about a method is an opportunity for distrust to be exploited, even if the method is ultimately better. Plurality is terrible, but almost nobody had questions about it, and that’s why it’s stuck around for so long. Do you see what I mean? I may be a bit jaded, but I’m hoping to be realistic.

I don’t mean to be a downer, but my point is a bit sad: in terms of what people would prefer, such as more choices or buttons, what we have to deal with is exactly the fact that people are having a hard time getting what they prefer. The political status quo is strongly opposed to voting reform, it will have to relinquish substantial power and accountability to the people under an effective voting system. There’s a reason only flawed tokenisms like IRV have passed through legislature in recent times. In fact, there is a history of voting reforms being enacted and then reversed.

@rob especially if the state is a swing state, making it more difficult for the large parties to secure voters for their platform I think would be a significant influence forcing large parties and their candidates to more scrutinizingly determine the real interests of voters in those states. It may dilute the interests of less competitive states, but since the competitive states are crucial to obtaining the presidency, the large parties will still have to invest strongly in the interests of voters in those states in order to compete with alternatives (and obviously each other) for the crucial swing points. This may lead to something like an arms race of concessions, which happened in New Zealand in 1996 and led to the national adoption of a PR system, according to Arend Lijphart. Obviously that's quite a leap for the U.S., but maybe a less extreme analogue is not so far-fetched.

Maine is one of the thirteen most competitive states for elections according to a 2016 analysis (Wikipedia: Swing state), so I’m not sure their recent establishment is actually strategically foolish, although it’s possible that it wasn’t fully thought through. I agree it isn't clear.

I think it will definitely be interesting to observe how the current political apparatus responds to Maine--and apparently, more recently, and strangely, Alaska:

https://news.yahoo.com/alaska-is-about-to-try-something-completely-new-in-the-fall-election-193615285.html

Since Alaska is far from competitive, I do think this transition was in fact foolish for the reasoning you stated, but it remains to be seen. If we saw a state like Florida transition to a system like Maine's, it would be very interesting to study the relative differences between federal treatments of Florida, Maine, and Alaska as a case study for how "swingy-ness" might influence the effect of such voting system transitions. If Maine experiences an increase in federal power, it would be a good case for the remaining swing states to make a similar transition. If that occurred, the swing states would become a platform foothold for alternative parties to grow.

@k98kurz I don’t think there should be any uncertainty in the default for a voter’s ballot.

@democrates I meant a Condorcet winner only among the front runners (for example, the candidates with the top K scores, here we are taking K=2). If there is no Condorcet winner among them, then we can choose the top scoring candidate.

In your case, if two candidates have the same second-greatest score, and the three front runners form a Condorcet cycle, then you can use the scores to break the tie. If this was used, then Jill Stein would have won the election.

That isn’t “the correct” solution (there is no such thing), but it is somewhat less arbitrary than flipping a coin or operating by alphabetical order, neither of which has anything to do with relevant information that is readily available on the ballots.

If we were being engineers about choosing a high quality candidate to win the election, we could even compute the distribution of scores, take the candidates whose scores exceed some elbow point, and find the Condorcet winner among those candidates with the top scoring candidate as the backup if no Condorcet winner exists. That’s basically a generalization of STAR with a dynamic front-runner selection method.

There are other ways to proceed. For example, we could remove Condorcet losers, then try to find the Condorcet winner of all remaining candidates, iteratively eliminating the lowest scoring candidate until a Condorcet winner emerges.

@k98kurz mirroring @Lime, I think any advantage conferred to one candidate over any other in an election should be granted on an opt in basis. A voter shouldn’t have to opt out from conferring an advantage to a candidate.

@toby-pereira yes you’re right, it was just a thought that occurred to me when I was thinking about how to discourage bullet approvals, but it has irreconcilable flaws that are now apparent.

@wolftune this is a well-known Condorcet method due in spirit to Tideman and called “Bottom N Runoff” where N=2 (hence “Bottom Two Runoff,” I.e. BTR or B2R). Generally speaking, these methods use some kind of absolute criterion (like least number of first place votes, lowest score, lowest approval, etc.) to decide which “bottom” candidates to subject to an elimination round, eliminates a Condorcet loser among them, and iterates until the desired number of winners remain. You are right, they’re pretty good methods. I like them.

@mosbrooker Mike, this forum is for structured discussions on voting theory, not personal blog posts. If you want to share your personal thoughts in a blog format, you’re welcome to start your own blog elsewhere.

@matija yeah, it seems that there were many factors that converged. I guess we never know what might have been or might be especially instrumental per se in the rise of anti-democratic regimes. As we’re seeing now in the USA, even supposedly “stable” vote-for-one systems are vulnerable to the most basic kind of fragmentation, namely splitting in half.

I’m not sure how stable these systems are then, considering the bipolar oscillations of government. The same gridlocks that make legislature impotent appear in a more blatant form. To me, that means vote-for-one is even less desirable than previously imagined, since even its claim to purported stability is moot.

@matija is that really how they elected the president? How did they vote?

Hi, as a fairly busy researcher, I still want to understand to whatever degree possible the context of the rise of the Third Reich and fascism in Germany. What factors enabled or failed to frustrate this rise in terms of the structure of the German government? For example, leading up to the rise, what was the parliamentary structure? How, if at all, was power separated between branches of government? What form of voting system was used—was it a proportional representation system? What do scholars speculate about in terms of what changes to the structure of government might have checked, frustrated or disabled the rise of fascism there?

Some answers to these are obvious, but I wanted to ask these questions openly to spur a conversation about the roles of these factors in the failure to keep fascism in check. For example, one speculation is that PR was a factor, leading to an unstable government as parties arose, formed and broke coalitions, and dissolved. This led to a weak legislative branch of government. With this in mind, how can we design or provide counterbalances to systems of proportional representation that don’t suffer from the same vulnerability to fragmentation and instability?

Another aspect was the capability of the executive to seize essentially unilateral control in “emergency” events.

If anybody has insight about this, I think this is an important discussion to have.

Hi! I’ve noticed an increase in spam posts, especially advertisements, which as a moderator I have been deleting at my discretion based on the clear policies on content for this forum. I think maybe our policies should require moderator approval for posts by new users, or some additional safeguards against spam, whatever those might be. Do you have any thoughts or suggestions?

@toby-pereira I have a moment now to take a look and I’m taking notes. I have a specific question for you though: Generally, do you think that registering for political parties and having that registration play a role in the voting process is something to be avoided?

@toby-pereira thank you!! I will definitely follow this as you continue. Due to other obligations it’s been difficult to find bandwidth to dive into your other content, but I intend to once I find an opening.

@Toby-Pereira I tried to fix this problem, and came up with some formulas to define the quota compliance multiplier using entropy. It’s kind of complicated, but it’s well-defined, and it encourages diverse compromises between parties. It probably now gives more bargaining power to larger parties, and “puppeteering” can still be strategic, but I think those things are in direct conflict unfortunately.

This is a markdown file that defines the formula.

# Proposed Compliance Multiplier Formula

This document presents a proposed formula for the compliance multiplier in the proposed system, which compares the observed distribution of ambassador seats with the ideal distribution based solely on voter shares.

## 1. Partition Functions

The ideal partition function for a given party \(X\) is defined as:

[
Z_P(X) = P(X \sim X) + \sum_{i \neq X} P(X \sim i) + \sum_{j \neq X} P(j \sim X)
]

The observed partition function is defined as:

[
Z_Q(X) = P(X \sim X) + \sum_{i \neq X} Q(X \sim i) + \sum_{j \neq X} Q(j \sim X)
]

*Note: For party consistency, we impose that \(Q(X \sim X) = P(X \sim X)\) for every party \(X\).*

## 2. Entropy–like Quantities

The ideal (maximum) entropy is given by:

[
E_P(X) = \frac{-P(X \sim X)\ln P(X \sim X) - \sum_{i \neq X} P(X \sim i)\ln P(X \sim i) - \sum_{j \neq X} P(j \sim X)\ln P(j \sim X)}{Z_P(X)} + \ln Z_P(X)
]

The observed entropy is given by:

[
E_Q(X) = \frac{-P(X \sim X)\ln P(X \sim X) - \sum_{i \neq X} Q(X \sim i)\ln Q(X \sim i) - \sum_{j \neq X} Q(j \sim X)\ln Q(j \sim X)}{Z_Q(X)} + \ln Z_Q(X)
]

## 3. Compliance Multiplier

The compliance multiplier for party \(X\) is then defined as:

[
\text{Multiplier}(X) = \frac{E_Q(X)}{E_P(X)}
]

Since for every off-diagonal entry we have \(Q(X \sim Y) \leq P(X \sim Y)\) (with equality on the diagonal), the normalized observed entropy \(E_Q(X)\) is less than or equal to the ideal entropy \(E_P(X)\). Therefore, it follows that:

[
\text{Multiplier}(X) \leq 1.
]

This guarantees that a party's compliance multiplier never exceeds 1, reflecting that the observed (normalized) diversity of ambassador nominations cannot surpass the ideal (maximally spread) distribution.

And here are some examples

# Four-Party Examples of Compliance Multipliers

This document presents computed examples for a 4-party system under different scenarios. We consider four parties—A, B, C, and D—with the following voter shares:

- **Party A:** 0.4  
- **Party B:** 0.3  
- **Party C:** 0.2  
- **Party D:** 0.1

The ideal ambassador seat allocation is given by:

[
P(X \sim Y)=P(X) \times P(Y)
]

Thus, the **ideal matrix** \(P\) is:

| From \(\backslash\) To | A    | B    | C    | D    |
|------------------------|------|------|------|------|
| **A**                | 0.16 | 0.12 | 0.08 | 0.04 |
| **B**                | 0.12 | 0.09 | 0.06 | 0.03 |
| **C**                | 0.08 | 0.06 | 0.04 | 0.02 |
| **D**                | 0.04 | 0.03 | 0.02 | 0.01 |

For each party \(X\), we define the **partition functions** as follows:

- **Ideal:**
  [
  Z_P(X)=P(X\sim X)+\sum_{Y\neq X}P(X\sim Y)+\sum_{Y\neq X}P(Y\sim X)
  ]
- **Observed:**
  [
  Z_Q(X)=P(X\sim X)+\sum_{Y\neq X}Q(X\sim Y)+\sum_{Y\neq X}Q(Y\sim X)
  ]
  
with the assumption that for all parties, \(Q(X \sim X)=P(X \sim X)\).

We then define the **entropy–like quantities**:
[
E_P(X)=\frac{-\sum_Y P(X\sim Y)\ln P(X\sim Y)}{Z_P(X)}+\ln Z_P(X)
]
[
E_Q(X)=\frac{-\sum_Y Q(X\sim Y)\ln Q(X\sim Y)}{Z_Q(X)}+\ln Z_Q(X)
]
and the **compliance multiplier** is given by:
[
\text{Multiplier}(X)=\frac{E_Q(X)}{E_P(X)}.
]

Under the condition that for every off-diagonal entry \(Q(X\sim Y)\leq P(X\sim Y)\), the normalized observed entropy cannot exceed the ideal one—so \(\text{Multiplier}(X)\leq 1\).

---

## Scenario 1: Full Compliance

**Situation:**  
Every party fills its ambassador seats exactly as in the ideal, so for all \(X, Y\):
[
Q(X\sim Y)=P(X\sim Y).
]

**Results:**  
- **Party A:** Multiplier = 1.000  
- **Party B:** Multiplier = 1.000  
- **Party C:** Multiplier = 1.000  
- **Party D:** Multiplier = 1.000  

---

## Scenario 2: Sabotage by Party B Against Party A

**Modification:**  
Party B refuses to elect any ambassadors from A. In our observed matrix, we set:
[
Q(B\sim A)=0 \quad \text{(instead of the ideal }0.12\text{)}.
]
All other entries remain ideal.

### Computed Values

**For Party A:**

- **Ideal Partition Function:**  
  \(Z_P(A)=0.16+ (0.12+0.08+0.04)+(0.12+0.08+0.04)=0.16+0.24+0.24=0.64.\)

- **Observed Partition Function:**  
  - Row A remains: \(0.16+0.12+0.08+0.04=0.40.\)  
  - Column A: Instead of \(0.12+0.08+0.04=0.24,\) we have \(0+0.08+0.04=0.12.\)  
  So, \(Z_Q(A)=0.16+0.24+0.12=0.40.\)

- **Entropy–like Quantities (Approximate):**  
  - \(E_P(A) \approx 1.840.\)  
  - \(E_Q(A) \approx 1.472.\)

- **Compliance Multiplier:**  
  [
  \text{Multiplier}(A)\approx \frac{1.472}{1.840}\approx 0.800.
  ]

**For Party B:**

- **Ideal Partition Function:**  
  \(Z_P(B)\approx 0.51.\)

- **Observed Partition Function:**  
  \(Z_Q(B)\approx 0.27.\)

- **Entropy–like Quantities (Approximate):**  
  - \(E_P(B) \approx 1.824.\)  
  - \(E_Q(B) \approx 1.524.\)

- **Compliance Multiplier:**  
  [
  \text{Multiplier}(B)\approx \frac{1.524}{1.824}\approx 0.834.
  ]

**For Parties C and D:**  
No sabotage occurs, so:  
- **Multiplier(C) = 1.000.**  
- **Multiplier(D) = 1.000.**

---

## Scenario 3: Puppet Scenario – Party D as a Puppet for Party A

**Modification:**  
Party D acts as a puppet for Party A to harm Party B. We set:
[
Q(D\sim B)=0 \quad \text{(instead of the ideal }0.03\text{)}.
]
All other entries remain ideal.

### Computed Values

**For Party A:**  
- \(Z_Q(A)\) remains nearly ideal, so  
  **Multiplier(A) \(\approx 1.000\).**

**For Party B:**  
- Losing support from D reduces its observed diversity, so  
  **Multiplier(B) \(\approx 0.910\).**

**For Party C:**  
- Fully compliant, so  
  **Multiplier(C) = 1.000.**

**For Party D (the puppet):**  
- Due to its refusal to elect from B, its observed diversity is reduced:  
  **Multiplier(D) \(\approx 0.940\).**

### Effective Representation for the A Coalition

If effective main-platform representation is given by the product of voter share and multiplier, then:
- **Party A:** \(0.4 \times 1.000 = 0.400.\)
- **Party D:** \(0.1 \times 0.940 \approx 0.094.\)

Thus, the total effective representation for the A coalition is:
[
R(A \text{ coalition}) = 0.400 + 0.094 \approx 0.494.
]
This is slightly less than the 0.5 (50%) of the vote they would control if D were fully compliant, reflecting the cost of splitting support.

---

## Summary of Computed Multipliers

- **Scenario 1 (Full Compliance):**
  - A: 1.000  
  - B: 1.000  
  - C: 1.000  
  - D: 1.000

- **Scenario 2 (Sabotage by B Against A):**
  - A: ≈ 0.800  
  - B: ≈ 0.834  
  - C: 1.000  
  - D: 1.000

- **Scenario 3 (Puppet – D as Puppet for A):**
  - A: ≈ 1.000  
  - B: ≈ 0.910  
  - C: 1.000  
  - D: ≈ 0.940

---

## Interpretation

- **Full Compliance:** All parties achieve ideal diversity, so their compliance multipliers are 1.
- **Sabotage:** When Party B refuses to elect ambassadors from Party A, both A and B see their normalized diversity reduced (multipliers drop to ≈0.800 and ≈0.834, respectively).
- **Puppet Scenario:** Using Party D as a puppet to harm Party B, while A remains nearly ideal, both B and D are penalized—the puppet (D) suffers a lower multiplier (≈0.940) and B’s multiplier drops to about 0.910. Moreover, the A coalition's effective representation becomes slightly diluted (≈0.494 instead of 0.500).

These examples illustrate that while parties might attempt sabotage or use puppets to undermine competitors, the system’s reliance on normalized diversity ensures that such strategies come at a cost to all parties involved.

I think with careful consideration, it might be possible to adjust the multiplier so that “puppeteering” actually harms a party in proportion to the harm it could cause to its largest rival. For example, maybe raising the multiplier to some power or passing it through some other function would disincentivize puppeteering more.

Hi @toby-pereira! This is a lot of information. Do you have resources you would recommend to learn more about PR methods and the different specific methods and modules that you mention here? I think you did link a lot of things, but is there a “crash course” of sorts that could make it easier to digest?

@toby-pereira you were on the right track about something: in this system, small parties can effectively sacrifice themselves to take down larger parties. This could lead to the creation of “puppet parties” that are essentially used as weapons to take down representation of another party, which is kind of a virtual form of MAD warfare.