IRO and Condorcet

[Tom Round]

Mike - Thanks for your reply (I'm still digesting ...), but one statement 
has me stumped ...

>    [By the way, Tom mentioned that a pairwise method was being proposed at 
an Australian university. Which pairwise method is it?]

Having re-read my posting, I think I may have been unclear at one point. 
Prof Nanson was a professor of mathematics at Melbourne University about a 
century ago. He devised the Nanson system, which I knew was some kind of 
pairwise method, but I don't think it's been used for university elections 
there or anywhere else. (Source: Jack Wright's "MIRROR OF THE NATION'S MIND; 
AUSTRALIA'S ELECTORAL EXPERIMENTS", 1980).

Most universities and student unions in Australia use STV/ AV for their 
elections. However, a recent disturbing trend has been a turning back of the 
clock with The University of Queensland and The University Cooperative (a 
bookshop coop) abandoning PR-STV in the past 2-3 years to revert to 
first-past-the-post. In UQ's case they appear (from the last ballot paper I 
got mailed to elect graduate reps to the Uni Senate) to have replaced STV/AV 
with approval voting, apparently for ease of administration since the 
ballots appear designed to be computer-read. Thus for single positions UQ 
has moved CLOSER to Mike's preferred position (ie AppV not AV), whereas for 
multiple positions UQ has moved FURTHER AWAY from it (ie, AppV not STV), 
with one and the same change ... (-:

Tom

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