Majority Loser Criterion & Condorcet (fwd)

Mike Ossipoff dfb at bbs.cruzio.com
Tue Jun 11 02:59:30 PDT 1996


Mike Ossipoff writes:
> From mail.eskimo.com!eskimo.com!election-methods-list Mon Apr 15 05:46:54 1996
> Date: Mon, 15 Apr 1996 05:44:53 -0700 (PDT)
> Message-Id:  <9604150041.aa08002 at bbs.cruzio.com>
> Reply-To: election-methods-list at eskimo.com
> Originator: election-methods-list at eskimo.com
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> From: Mike Ossipoff <dfb at bbs.cruzio.com>
> To: Multiple recipients of list <election-methods-list at eskimo.com>
> Subject: Majority Loser Criterion & Condorcet
> X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas
> 
> Again, as with the other academic candidate-counting criteria, 
> Smith//Condorcet meets Majority Loser, though plain Condorcet can
> conceivably fail it.
> 
> Majority Loser Criterion:
> 
> "Never pick an alternative that is the last choice of a majority
> of the voters."
> 
> As I said in my initial reply to Bruce's bad-example message, sent to
> a few EM members, this criterion is overkill. It's undesirable to pick
> an alternative with a majority against it at all, whether or not that
> majority have ranked _everything_ else over it.
> 
> And if plain Condorcet picks a Majority Loser (ML), that means that
> _every_ alternative in the election has a majority against it too.
> In fact, it means that every alternative other than the one chosen
> by plain Condorcet has a bigger majority against it that the winner
> by plain Condorcet does. I bet Bruce didn't mention that in the
> explanation accompanying his bad-examples.
> 
> Another thing he doesn't mention, and which those contrived bad-examples
> don't show, is that Copeland can pick an alterntive with a majority
> against it even if no other alternative has a majority against it.
> 
> ***
> 
> ML is a candidate-counting criterion because it combines a majority
> against an alternative with _how many_ alternatives that majority
> have ranked over it (all the other alternatives).
> 
> So, in his bad-examples, in order to make the winner by plain
> Condorcet a ML, Bruce had to make every alternative in the election
> be beaten with a full majority against it.
> 
> ***
> 
> Mike
> 
> 
> -- 
> .-
> 


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