Majority Tie Breaker

[Mike Ossipoff]

When Demorep says that "plain Condorcet's method" often won't
have a winner, he does NOT mean the method that people on this
list call plain Condorcet. He's talking about something completely
different: a pairwise count that elects someone if they beat
everyone else, but has no rule for what to do if such a
candidate doesn't exist. Of course no one on this list (or anywhere
else, that I've heard of) is advocating or proposing such a method.

Demorep seems to suggest that Approval is inadequate, but,
though Approval isn't as good as the best rank-balloting count
methods, it's better than most of them. A bad rank-balloting
count method can be pretty bad, and they differ very drastically
in their merit.

Demorep says that it isn't good enough to elect someone
who doesn't have a majority, such as someone with only 45%
support. But in actual elections, there's rarely someone
with an outright majority, and, whether we all like it or not,
we usually have to elect someone who doesn't have a majority.

But though we can't guarantee that the winner will have a 
1st-choice majority, we can still comply with the standard
that says that if a majority indicate preference for A over
B then we don't elect B. I've talked about why Condorcet
complies with standard best, as precisely measured by
the Generalized Majority Criterion.

As I said, I don't disagree with Demorep's suggestion to have
"disapproval voting" as an option. Steve enumerated several
ways of doing that. I said that, so far as I'm aware, it wouldn't
do any harm to include that option, along with a good rank-balloting
count method.

But, as I also said, a long time ago, it wouldn'b be awfully necessary
to have that option with Condorcet's method, because Condorcet,
by itself, makes it very difficult for a candidate to win if
a majority prefer someone else to him/her. Still, as I said,
the disapproval-vote option would do no harm, so far as I'm
aware.

Demorep needn't keep putting it out as an alternative to 
the best rank-balloting count rules. I talked in a recent
message, about why disapproval voting option isn't enough
, by itself, to get rid of the lesser-of-2-evils problem.

Inclusion of a disapproval-vote option should be purely a matter
of voter acceptance. If people would like a sw proposal better
if it included disapproval-voting as an added option, then it
should be included. If they'd be put off by it, as an added
rule, or because it threatens to prevent us from having a President,
then it shouldn't be included.

Of the various proposals for disapproval-related things, I
like the idea of "Status-Quo" always being compulsorily included
in ever sw election. Compulsory, because if it's optional, then
who gets to have that option? I like the idea of Status-Quo
having exactly the same status as the other alternatives in
the election. If it wins, then there's no change resulting from
the elecion. In a sw election for a representative, then the
incumbant remains in office. If the incumbant has vacated or
died, then the office remains empty.


Mike Ossipoff




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