Demorep's Example & Objection

[Mike Ossipoff]

DEMOREP1 at aol.com writes:
> 
> As I have mentioned many times, the opponents of any new election method
> tending towards majority rule will bring up extreme examples so that the
> method must deal with all possibilities.

The method must deal with what's important. Certainly it's desirable
to eliminate criticism in advance when possible, even on issues where
serious merit isn't involved, and that's why we recommend 
Smith//Condorcet for public proposals instead of plain Condorcet.

But the method you've proposed fails in the common & important situations.

So it isn't just liklihood; importance matters too. It's well known
that it's possible to criticize _any_ method based on some standard
other than the one on which it's based, which is why, as I said
in my previous message about this, it's a question of what properties
& standards are important to you.

> Anybody recall the S.S. Titanic, the Chernobyl or the Challenger disasters
> which supposedly were unlikely according to their designers ?
> Once again my comments were about a possible tie breaker only. In Condorcet
> tie breaker cases, the question is which first choice votes should lose.

No, it needn't be about 1st choice votes. What's for sure is that
it's a question of what candidate should win. Other than that,
the choice of what you want to go by is up to you. Many people,
including me, consider certain standards to be important.

Mike 


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