"more than half the voters???"

[Mike Ositoff]

> 
> Dear Mike O,
> 
> You wrote:
> "A group consisting of more than half the voters should get their way.
> 
> These are pretty safe things to say, aren't they? I believe that most
> people in the general voting population would agree with these standards,
> as would most electoral reform advocates."  Mike
> 
> Donald: This does seem to be a "pretty safe thing to say", but most people
> are unaware of your defination of "more than half the voters".

Divide the number of voters who participated in that particular
multi-alternative choice by 2. Any number of voters greater than
that is more than half the voters.

> 
>      So, would you explain what you consider to be "more than half the
> voters". You can start with this example:
> 
>         18 AB         17 BA        15 CA
>         18 AC         17 BC        15 CB
>        ------        ------       ------
>         36      +     34     +     30     =     100
> 
>      Do any of these candidaates have "more than half the voters"?

None of the candidates have 1st choice support of more than 1/2 the
voters, if that's what you mean.


>      I am expecting you to say that the group that voted for candidate A
> contains more than half the voters(68).

No that isn't something that I'd say, though I won't deny that
more than half the voters have A in their ranking. 


>      If so, Then I must point out to you that the groups that voted for
> candidate B and C also have "more than half the voters"(67 and 65)
> according to your defination.

Fine. I'll take your word for it that more than half of the voters
have them in their rankings too. 

I was talking about something different, where more than half
the voters want the same result. Say more than half indicate
they'd rather have A than B, for instance.

Mike




> 
> Donald Davison
> 
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