[EM] Re: first wave Condorcet proposals

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

(I again forgot to write down the subject-title, and so I've written it as 
close as possible to the original one).

James--

You wrote:

	Assuming no pairwise ties, how does SD differ from SSD? Can you give an
example where they differ?

I reply:

I can't find an example in time to include it in this reply, and I didn't 
want to delay this reply while I look for an example. At first glance (well, 
  a little after first glance too), it looks as if without pairwise ties it 
would be difficult to find an example in which SD differs from SSD.

But the reason I know they're different without pairwise tiesis because of  
examples without pairwise ties that have been posted.

But, though it seems to me that the examples in which SD & SSD differ had no 
pairwise ties, there's always the possibility that I'm mistaken about that, 
and that those example had pairwise ties--and that SD doesn't differ from 
SSD without pairwise ties. If anyone can supply an example in which they 
differ without pairwise ties, I invite you to post it.

But SD is a good public proposal even if it can differ from SSD in public 
elections, without pairwise ti8es.

I'd said:

>...but I claim that PC is more meaningfully and practically  compared to 
>Plurality & IRV than to the Smith-efficient Condorcet versions.

You replied:

	What?

I reply:

Good question. What I mean to say is that PC's merit differs from that of 
Pluralitiy and IRV a lot more than it differs from the merit of the 
Smth-efficient Condorcet versions. And so, if it turns out that PC's 
unmatched simplicity makes it even a little more winnable than the better 
Condorcet versions, then PC would be the better public proposal, in spite of 
not being as good as SD, SSD, BeatpathWinner/CSSD & RP.

I'd like to add, to the bottom of my rankng of publc Condorcet proposals, in 
4th place, Smith//PC.

There should be polling and discussions with members of the publc to find 
out which Condorcet versions are acceptable to them. I suggest presenting 
such a poll to people in some forum you know of, after having set the poll 
up at the masquilier website. Instruct people to go to the website and vote 
in the poll. I believe that its website is at:

http://www.masquilier.org

That's the homepage. From there you can click a link that takes you to the 
polling page. There they have a link to instructions for setting up a poll.

Masquililer does polling by Approval and BeatpathWinner. For our purpose, 
Approval is the important one, and voters should be instructed to vote for 
the proposals that are acceptable to them, that they'd sign a petition for 
and vote yes on.

If you have the extra time, though, voters in the poll could be given the 
option of ranking the proposals in order of acceptableness, in a Condorcet 
poll (counted by BeatpathWinner). But if that oiption is added, it's 
important to clearly label it as optional, with the Approval poll being the 
important one.

I'd suggest announcing the poll's results to EM, after it has results. But I 
wouldn't announce the poll here before that, because the poll should only be 
for people who are new to voting systems. So I suggest that, when there's 
such a poll, EM members who have any prior exposure to voting systems (as we 
all here do) shouldn't take the poll.

You continued:

It will be interesting to see if CWO can pass the
public acceptance test. Do you think that CWO is the most acceptable of
the anti-strategy measures? If not, which one is, in your opinion?

I reply:

CWO is such a natural enhancement, that one would expect CWO to be the most 
acceptable one. But experience with IRVists suggests that some people are 
going to have a strong irrational resistance to CWO.

The other enhancements are complications added to Condorcet, and they aren't 
as simple and obvious as CWO. But they're more conventional, in the sense 
that they consist only of balloting and count, whereas CWO does something 
new and unfamiliar, when it lets candidates withdraw and call for a new 
count without them.

As I was saying, I don't think that there's any justification for the 
IRVists' objections to CWO. They object because they think it's somehow 
undemocratic when you vote for someone and s/he withdraws. It makes the 
IRVists feel that the candidates, rather than the voters, are in control of 
the outcome. But, especially with a bad method like IRV or Plurality, what's 
wrong with letting the candidates help improve the result, when the method 
itself doesn't give the voter a decent chance to.

By the way, though, if someone is going toi propose CWO, then, for proposal 
simplicitly, why not just propose adding CWO to Plurality? Or, where IRV has 
been enacted, adding CWO to IRV?

It seems to me that it would be too complicating to add any enhancement to 
Condorcet, including CWO, Cardinal Pairwise, AERLO &/or ATLO, etc.

But I suggest that CWO as an addition to Plurality (or IRV, if IRV where IRV 
has been enacted) would be a worthwhile thing to try.

Of course, for CWO to be used with Plurality, Plurality would need 
rank-balloting. But it would still just be Plurality with the obvious and 
natural CWO.

That seems a really good proposal. How often do we hear people saying that 
Nader should withdraw from a presidential campaign? Well then, give him a 
chance to withdraw after the count.

What could be more natural and obvious?  "You say Nader can't win and will 
just spoil the Democrat? Ok, then let's find out, and, if you're right, 
he'll withdraw."

I suspect that some of the objection to that has to do with a feeling that 
it's too good to be true, so there must be something wrong with it. A 
feeling that Mr. Nader should have to either withdraw before the election, 
or take his spoiler-chances like a man. A feeling that Nader shouldn't have 
such an easy way to avoid being a spoiler.

The lesser-of-2-evils problem is so ingrained in people that I fear that 
they'd think something must be wrong with a proposed system that doesn't 
have that problem.

But if we can propose Approval & Condorcet, which greatly reduce or 
elimiante that problem, then why not propose CWO for Plurality too?

Mike Ossipoff

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