[EM] The Repoman strikes again

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

> >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?
>
>You haven't, but why not?  Isn't the ultimate outcome for the SCW to win
>every time?  (If electoral theory is so outcome based, as you suggest).  I
>haven't suggested it, because it cannot be incorporated into a fair
>proceedure.

That's true. No voting system can always determine the sincere CW.
Condorcet's method, however, does an excellent job of electing such
a candidate.

Actually, if, in a "what if" discussion, we suppose that it's possible
to determine these things, my choice would be to always elect the
social utility maximizing candidate. But that, like always electing
the sincere CW, can't be guaranteed. The best we can do is to meet
the criteria that Condorcet, Approval & Cardinal Ratings meet.


>
>The concept of electoral theory being proceedurally based is fairly simple;
>
>1) We have no way of telling who the best candidate will be
>2) Because of (1), and for various other good reasons, holding an election
>seems to be the best way to decide which candidate wins
>3) We develop a proceedure for counting votes and selecting a winning
>candidate based on the fairest representation of peoples views as expressed
>in (2).
>
>How we determine "fairest representation of people's views" is partly
>determined, as you point out, by outcome-based arguments.
>
>Point 1 is the disputed point.  Is this correct?

Of course not. As you said, we don't know who's the best candidate,
but we can insist on certain criteria that relate the outcome
to people's wishes and votes.

I don't disute any of those statements, then.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com