[EM] Majority Criterion, hidden contradictions

[Michael Poole]

Abd ul-Rahman Lomax writes:

> At 06:31 PM 11/8/2006, Michael Poole wrote:
>>Abd ul-Rahman Lomax writes:
>>
>>[snip]
>> > Now, it does appear to me that the people who have explained the MC in
>> > the past have been to some extent aware of the problem, which is why
>> > we get vague language like "if the voters are asked which candidate
>> > they prefer over all the others," "Asked?" How? It must be on the
>> > ballot, and it must be through a method of expressing such strict
>> > preference that the ballot allows. Approval allows such expression. In
>> > only one way. Exactly the same as in Plurality.
>>[snip]
>>
>>Coming from someone who recently advocated in favor of exit polls as a
>>way of measuring actual voter preference, this insistence on looking
>>only at ballot markings is extremely strange.
>
> This is getting entirely out of hand. Exit polls may be useful for
> this or that, but they are irrelevant when it comes to whether the
> election method being used satisfies one of the election criteria.

The only thing that is getting out of hand is your outright refusal to
use "Majority Criterion" to mean the same thing everyone else does.
It does not say "If a majority of voters mark only X...".  It says "If
a majority of voters prefer X to all others...".  Ballots that simply
ignore relevant information make it harder, not easier, to satisfy a
criterion.

Clearly, exit polls cannot prove or disprove a method's satisfication
of a theoretical criteria in the general case.  My point is that
voters have preferences that are not captured by the ballot in use,
and that one can easily get that information from them by asking.

(I believe that was the same point you made when you proposed getting
more ranking or scoring information from voters at exit polls -- it
would allow comparisons of election methods using actual data rather
than contrived examples or simulations.)

> I'm saying that *for evaluating an election method objectively,* we
> must look only at the ballots, not at what people say about them, urge
> voters to do with them, or think about the candidates.

Why should we ignore the voter's unsolicited or ignored preferences in
judging the method?  In your "objective" evaluation scheme, collecting
but ignoring further information from voters would mean that the same
method -- reaching the same results -- would suddenly fail criteria
that it satisfied with the old ballots.

Michael Poole