Lowest Number

[Mike Ossipoff]

donald at mich.com writes:
> 
> 
> Mike wrote:
> 
> Mike: >First of all, with 3 candidates, you can have 6 preference orderings
> >of those 3 candidates. Considering truncation, there are only
> >9 possible rankings, not 15 (the figure you gave):
> >
> >A          B          C
> >
> >A          B          C
> >B          A          A
> >
> >A          B          C
> >C          C          B
> 
> Don: So far - so good - but you need more.

No, you don't. The effect of ranking one's last choce
is nil, and there's no reason to add a separate set of voters
who do that in an example.

> 
> Mike:>
> >Your last rows of rankings unnecessarily & meaninglessly
> >rank a last choice.
> 
> Don: If the voters want to list all candidates, the voters should be
> allowed to do so - kind of like a vote of confidence for the winner.

I hope it didn't sound as if I were saying that voters shouldn't be
allowed to rank their last choice. I'm only saying that there's no
need for an example to include a separate set of voters who do that,
since it doesn't affect the election (actually, with some count
rules, such as a possible unfortunate version of Bucklin, such
rankings _could_ affect the results, contary to the interest &
wish of the voters of those rankings, and, you may be sure that
I'd include such rankings in a bad example of such a method).

> 
> >***
> >
> >Realistic? Your examples where every possible ranking occurs
> >frequently enough to be important in the election & in the example
> >is most unrealistic.
> 
> Don: The mathematics of whatever method you are using should be able to
> handle every possible ranking that may occur.

Whoa. Did we establish that the mathematics of Condorcet's count
rule couldn't handle every ranking?? My point was just that
if we're only going to write a few examples for a method, then
it makes sense to write realistlic ones. If you want to write
unrealistic ones, then we can discuss that too, and in that 
discussion I'll comment that they are unrealistic.

> 
> 
> >
> >To use my usual Presidential example, how many Dole voters would
> >like Nader's policy proposals better than those of Republocrat Clinton?
> >How many Republicans would consider Nader's policies closer to
> >the Republican policies than those of Clinton.
> 
> Don: Are you calling Clinton a Republocrat? Your opinions of the current

Yes. Clinton is a Republocrat. A candidate of the big-money party
that likes to represent itself as 2 parties, sharing a virtually
identical platform & ethical level & pracical policy record, and
differing only in a few details of campaign rhetoric.

> election are showing - do not mix them with your examples - my point
> stands.

Sorry, but how people will vote is relevant to my claim that your
inclusion of every kind of ranking is unrealistic. But even if you
don't agree with me that Clinton & Dole are Tweedldee-dee &
Tweedeldee-dum, maybe you'll agree that Clinton is closer to
Dole than Nader is, and that Clinton is closer to Nader than
Dole is (or so the progressives believe, anyway).

Where have you been? Every progressive I've talked to emphatically
tells me why he/she has to vote for Clinton, because, as undesirable
as Clinton might be, he's still better than Dole.

That very much bears on my claim that it would be pretty silly
to insist that our Dole, Clinton, Nader examples have a
significant set of Nader voters who rank Dole in 2nd place :-)
 
> 
> Donald at New Democracy http://www.mich.com/~donald
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> 
> 
> .-

Mike

> 


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