The Ultimate Method? Paul's Borda Count - #2 - "Dumais"

[Paul Dumais]

Unless this method already exists, I'd like to call it "Dumais". I'd
like to thank Blake Cretney for providing the many examples used to
develop this method. Dumais appears to meet the consistancy criterion
and does not suffer from vote splitting. Is that possible? I don't have
much practice at developing examples, but it appears that Dumais works
well with the examples I've examined so far.
	I'd like to fully explain the method. It can be used in single or
multiple seat elections. Note that a voter doesn't need to list all the
candidates. Unranked candidates split the remaining points. That is
(U-1)/2 where U is the number of unranked candidates in the vote. 
Parties or candidates could be ranked. The method should be applied to
each party first so that votes for a party can be used for the preferred
party candidate.

Dumais can be used to fill multiple seats quickly and efficiently.

Paul Dumais wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
>         I've been doing some more thinking and it appears that I have come up
> with an improved method. Here's how it works:
> 
> 1. Do a standard Borda count.
> 2. Define the borda number (BN) as the total number of candidates still
> being considered minus 1 times the number of voters: BN = (C-1)*V -where
> C is the number of candidates in consideration and V is the number of
> voters. Divide the candidates into two groups: one group with a borda
> count (BC) above BN/2 and one with a BC < BN/2.
> 3. Remove the lower group with BC < BN/2 from consideration. Change the
> BN accordingly.
> 4. Repeat steps 1-3 on as many groups as required. All candidates can be
> ranked in this way by repeating steps 1-3 on as many groups as required.
> 
> I think this method is immune to the advantage of running more
> candidates. I also think it is reverse consistant. We can ask: "who is
> the worst candidate?" and we shouldn't get a contradiction with "who is
> the best candidate?". It should also be monotonic, that is, a drop in
> support for a candidate should not result in the candidate getting
> ranked higher than otherwise.
> 
> I'm sorry, I havn't tried this method against all the criterions yet. I
> do feel however that we may have a winner(!) ;-) - or at least a soon to
> be very popular compromise!
> 
> --
> Paul Dumais

-- 
Paul Dumais, B.Eng.