Nevermind (Median Rating Voting)

[Rob Lanphier]

On Sat, 11 Apr 1998, Rob Lanphier wrote:
> [One] might have a good voting system by letting people rate candidates
> on a scale of 0 to 100 (or whatever range you like) and merely taking the
> median rating of all of the candidates, and declaring the candidate with
> the highest median rating the winner. 
> 
> I'm probably greatly oversimplifying things and I'm sure I've skipped a
> very important step, but in my sleep-deprived state, this seems like a
> very simple and elegant system.

This is why I should get some sleep before posting loopy ideas like this.
It occured to me what was wrong with this this afternoon:

99 votes total:
               Rating
49 voters     
  Candidate A   100
  Candidate B    52

1 voter
  Candidate A    50
  Candidate B    51

49 voters
  Candidate A    49
  Candidate B     0

Median
  Candidate A    50
  Candidate B    51

Candidate B wins.

So, while the median is an interesting number, it's not interesting enough
to base an election system on.

Rob Lanphier
robla at eskimo.com
http://www.eskimo.com/~robla