[EM] Replies to Saumur

[Mike Ossipoff]

Lucien Saumur said:

> A tie means a tie, and may be broken most fairly by flipping a coin
> by looking at some arbitrary aspect of the election without introducing
> a reason for strategic voting in the voting process.

But I've shown that it's Condorcet's method that doesn't reward
offensive strategic voting, or require defensive strategic voting, and
that Random-Solution (your proposal to solve circular ties randomly)
_does_ reward offensive strategic voting & necessitates defensive
strategic voting.

Earlier you said that it doesn't make any sense to speak of how
beaten a candidate is. That means that you're saying that it
doesn't make any sense to speak of how many people ranked
Clinton over Buchanan, to say that they want to defeat Buchanan,
and would prefer Clinton to him. I disagree, and I say that it
matters very much what a majority want, and it matters that
majority wishes are respected. And it matters that all those
people, a Clinton + Nader majority, can beat Buchanan, even if
some of them ranked Nader 1st. As I've said, that's really the whole
reason why we want electoral reform. Condorcet's method carries
out that goal, and MPV & Random-Solution don't. Neither do 
Double-Complement, Approval, or Approval-With-1st-Choice, though
the latter two are better than MPV.


Mike Ossipoff




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