Why it saves time

[Mike Ossipoff]

DEMOREP1 at aol.com writes:
> 
> Just a reminder--
> If the office were to be U.S. President in 1996, there would be around
> 106,000,000 ballots. With a mere 10 candidates there are a possible 45
> combinations. 45 x 106,000,000 = 4,770,000,000 pairs to be put in a mega
> array.

No. It's only necessary to keep 90 numbers in an array & tally those,
based on each ballot's pairwise preferences. Those 90 numbers are
how many people have voted A over B, & how many have votes B over A,
for each of the 45 pairs.

No matter how many voters there are, the counting computer only needs
those 90 numbers.

> Is more than 1 supercomputer needed?

No. No supercomputer is needed. You could use a low RAM pocket
computer, or programmable calculator, or, when the results for
the 45 pairs of candidates are in, you could do it without any
computer at all. Of course a Condorcet count is easier with
a computer, but any pocket computer or programmable calculator
could do it, since it only requires storing 90 numbers.


In MPV it would be necessary to store each ranking, something
not necessary in Condorcet's method. For a Presidential election
with 20 candidates & 100,000,000 voters, MPV would require about
a million times as much computer memory than Condorcet's method.
No, it isn't impossible to obtain such a computer for a Presidential
election, but Condorcet's need for only 90 numbers to be stored
has to be counted as an advantage over MPV. But Condorcet's
method has many other advantages over MPV, & MPV has so many
disadvantages, that it's hardly necessary to name another one.

> 
> 
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