Condorcet is Cute

[Donald E Davison]

Greetings,

Blake Cretney wrote: "If a majority of those expressing a preference rank A
over B, then I say that based on the ballots, a majority prefers A to B."
Don writes: This statement is true with all methods. Condorcet has no
special claim to it. If this statement is to be your God, you have no right
to claim that only through Condorcet can we reach God. The other methods
have the same God.

Blake: "A Condorcet winner is defined as the case where a single candidate is
preferred by a majority to every other candidate in the ballots provided."
Don: The same can be said for Plurality. If we pair up the candidates of a
Plurality election, the Condorcet winner will be the same as the Plurality
winner - so what?? We are trying to get away from Plurality. Condorcet is a
form of Plurality, that uses lower choices. Plurality will elect the
candidate that has a majority. Condorcet will elect the candidate the has a
majority of the pairings. Plurality will elect the lead candidate if there
is no candidate with a majority. Concorcet will elect the lead candidate if
there is no candidate with a majority of the pairings - two peas in a pod.

Blake: "The point is that this is a circular tie.  It doesn't matter whether
you use a Condorcet completion method, IRV, one of your new methods, or
don't bother to find a winner at all.  There is still a circular tie."
Don: There is still a circular tie only if we are using Condorcet as a
method. The other methods do not have circular ties. If Condorcet stumbles
and falls into a tie, it is of no concern to the other methods. The other
methods can still do their thing as if Condorcet never existed. I fail to
understand this adoration for Condorcet. Is this a cult thing??? Condorceet
is cute, but cute is not a reason to pick a method - cute will not do.
Condorcet is merely another method, and not a very good method at that.

Blake: "You can't really reduce the number of circular ties by reducing the
value of lower choices..."
Don: Oh, but I can and I did with your example.

Blake: "If you mean that a voter prefers his higher ranked candidates to
the lower ones, this is certainly true, but irrelevant."
Don: It is not irrelevant. The voter wants the full weight of his vote to
be on his most preferred choice as long as his first choice is a contender.
Condorcet allows the lower choices to work against a voter's first choice.
It is long past time for pairwise guys to start having some respect for the
wishes of the voters.
     The wishes of the voters are not irrelevant.

Blake: "The people who come to the most bizarre conclusions usually seem to
hold them most strongly."
Don: Yes, I agree with you. There seems to be a lot of that going around.
That is the way the pairwise guys are. This is not a perfect world. People
don't always act the way we would like them to act. But, it is nothing that
we cannot put up with. I have been putting up with them for the years that
I have been on this list - life goes on.

Donald Davison