Presidential 2-method vote

[donald at mich.com]

Dear Methods List,

Mike wrote on Sat 23 1996
>I mentioned this argument a long time ago, but it's time to repeat
>it for Don:
Donald: Thank you for not given up on me.

>Howabout we have a rank-balloting election for President, and we'll
>count the ballots in 2 ways: Condorcet's method, & IRO. Then,
>we'll hold a 2nd balloting, between the winner by Condorcet's
>method & the winner by IRO. In other words, we'll let the
>people choose which winner is the President that they want.
>
>You don't object to letting the people choose, do you?
>Guess which one would win :-)

Dear Mike,

     This Presidential Two-method vote is not perfect but it is the BEST
thing that has been written about the Condorcet vs Run-off conflict. I like
it - it is the greatest thing you have ever written about Condorcet - Thank
you. This has the promise of being the machine that can compare Instant
Run-off to Condorcet. This is something that I can get my teeth into.

     I'm going to make one change - I said it was not perfect. Instead of
having one rank-balloting election I am going to have two elections on the
first ballot. One will be using Instant Run-off to crunch the numbers and
the other will be using Condorcet. The candidates will be the same for both
elections. The voters will be free to vote different rankings between the
two elections. I do not know how many would do this but I want them to have
this option - I do not object to letting the people choose how they want to
rank each of the elections on the first ballot.

     So - the following is what I now have:
   + - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - +
   |  Ballot One:         Election One           Election Two        |
   |                     Instant Run-off          Condorcet          |
   |                        Method                 Method            |
   |                                                                 |
   |        (If both Elections have same candidate as winner         |
   |                 then Ballot Two in not needed.)                 |
   |                                                                 |
   |  Ballot Two:            Election Three - if needed              |
   |              Instant Run-off candidate vs Condorcet candidate   |
   + - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - +
     This is a contest that I will agree to.
     This is a machine that can be used to compare Instant Run-off vs
Condorcet - or any two methods - this machine is the Rosetta Stone of
elections. This is the machine that will enforce the Rule of Majority
Standard.
     This machine need not be used for only the Presidential election - it
can be used on any single seat election.

I have made the following breakdown using estimated percentages - I needed
to do this because I needed some reference - others likely would have other
numbers.

 Breakdown:                               Correct Winners for Run-off/Condorcet

 52% Contests in which one candidate received majority
     on first tally of the votes.                                52      52

 24% Contests in which Elections One and Two have same winner    24      24

  8% Contests in which Condorcet has circular tie                 3       5

 16% Balance of contests                                        0-8    8-16
----                                                          -----   -----
100%                                                          79-87   89-97

I will concede that Condorcet will produce about ten percent more correct
winners than Instant Run-off. I will also concede that this an important
difference.

BUT - if a  majority of the voters stop making second selections in the
Condorcet Elections then Condorcet will lose this edge it now has.

I am going for a rematch. I will get a rematch because I now know what the
flaw is in all elections. The flaw is that an election will abuse the
rights of a candidate while that candidate is still a contender. All
elections do this in different degrees - including Condorcet. I am sure I
can come up with something better - that subject will be for another
message.

Thank you again Mike - you have made me a happy man.

Donald,