Condorcet pairs on the ballot

[Mike Ossipoff]

donald at mich.com writes:
> 
> Greetings to the Methods List,
> 
> Steve wrote on Tue 19 Nov 1996
> Steve: >Donald posted another joke proposal without a smiley:
> >
> Steve: >Only someone who can't get Instant Runoff out of his fevered brain
> >would tally vote-sums.
> >
> 
> Donald: Dear Steve, This is a strange remark. If we have an election we
> have votes to tally - either by hand or by a computer. Do you have some new
> way in which you do not have to collect them into sums?

>From the fact that Don felt that it would be easier to vote on
pairs, rather than count the "vote-sums", it was evident that,
as in previous usage, "vote sum" was being used to mean the number
of people who voted a certain particular ranking. In that sense
of the phrase, the answer is that there is a way to not have
to count the vote sums: Don't use Instant Runoff. Condorcet's
method doesn't require summing the numbers of people who've voted
various possible rankings. It counts pairwise preferences between
pairs of alternatives. It does that without the voters having
to vote between every pair in a separate place on the ballot.
The voters need only express a ranking.

Mike



> 
> That's great Steve - keep up the good work.
> 
> Donald,
> 
> 
> .-
> 


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