[EM] The Repoman strikes again

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

>I absolutely agree.  There is a strong implication in the Hitler,
>Washington, Stalin example that Condorcet tends to pick the "best"
>candidate.  This makes Condorcet sound partisan and weakens the argument.

Typically, the safest assumption is that the voter median candidate
is less likely to do undesirable things than some extreme candidate is.
That's a reason why Condorcet is better than IRV. Demorep's example
dramatized that very real fact. Your example could be a good way
to demonstrate the same thing in predominantly fascist country, where
Mussolini is the voter-median candidate.

As I said too, the election of an extreme candidate tends to violate
majority rule.

>
> >One way of judging the fairness of process is by the fairness of its
> >results. We judge that according standards about outcomes, and
> >we measure for those standards by criteria. We have criteria like
> >Anonymity that say that all voters should be treated the same by
> >the balloting system & count rule. And we have various criteria
> >about fair & unfair outcomes.
> >
> >It might be better to really get it straight what you mean before
> >you tell us what electoral theory should be based on.
>
>Electoral theory is about proceedural fairness.  If I am a dictator, and I
>hand-pick the parliament, the election system isn't fair or desirable, even
>if I consistantly pick the people who would have been the Condorcet
>candidates if there had been a democratic election.  Certainly, you can't
>evaluate proceedural fairness without looking at outcomes in some respect,
>but there is a difference in saying "Candidate A should be the president
>because she has been elected by a fair and transparent electoral system" 
>and
>"Candidate A is the candiate who should be rightfully elected.  Any
>electoral system that elects candidate A is a fair and transparent 
>electoral
>system."

The problem is that you don't seem to know what you mean by "procedure".

As you use the term, are Condorcet's Criterion, Smith's Criterion,
& Monotonicity about procedure or outcome? They're certainly about
outcome, but maybe you'd say they're about procedure because
a procedure's merit can be judged by outcome. In that case you're
all confused about what you mean by procedure.

So are you saying that we should drop Condorcet's Criterion, Smith's
Criterion, & Monotonicity, because they're about outcome rather than
procedure?

If you say they're about procedure, & therefore ok, and if you
agree with Condorcet's Criterion & Smith's Criterion, then can
you notice that, in Demorep's example, IRV is procedurally acting wrong
(because you consider Condorcet's Criterion to be about procedure)?

Or is it that you're still bothered by the fact that Demorep used
Washington for the voter median candidate, and Stalin & Hitler for
the extremes. In the U.S., a someone more palatable than Hitler &
Stalin, say maybe Washington, would be more likely to be the voter
median candidate. So Demorep used names that accurately reflect
who would be an extreme and who would be more likely the voter median
candidate. Did he exaggerate the extremes? Sure. But the point is
entirely valid, about how IRV fails by jumping to extremes, who are
a danger of being much less desirable.

>
>If you say the latter, you're working backwards.  Say there is a sincere
>Condorcet winner in an election.  Should that candidate win, even if the
>voters don't vote sincerely and another candidate is the voted Condorcet
>winner?

You're using "Condorcet winner" in 2 different ways. First you
use it to mean sincere Condorcet winner, then you use it to mean
voted Condorcet winner.

The sincere Condorcet winner should win if everyone votes sincerely.
If you've believe that I, Demorep, or anyone else has said that
the SCW should win no matter how people vote, would you please
state the date of that posting, so we can find it in the archives?

>Of course not.  We all think that the fairness of the proceedure is
>more important than the fairness of the outcome, if only because you can
>guarantee a fair proceedure with much more certainty than a fair outcome.

This again goes back to your confusion about what you include under
procedure. Presumably you feel that the criteria that have requirements
about outcome are really about procedure and not about outcome.

Here's a procedure criterion that we've heard on this list:

The candidate who first ends up with a majority when lowest votegetters are 
eliminated and their ballots transferred according to the rankings
should win.

Is that a fair procedure or an unfair procedure?

The use of that procedure violates a number of important outcome
criteria, some of them widely accepted. I'd rather point that out
than debate the fairness of that procedure.

Mike Ossipoff

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