[EM] Fw: Invitation to join politicians-and-polytopes

[David Catchpole]

On Mon, 10 Apr 2000, Norman Petry wrote:

> You however, have decided that the correct method must fail the Condorcet
> criterion.  It's an interesting choice, but not one I agree with. I'm
> curious whether or not David Catchpole, who also seems to have a strong
> interest in both STV and mathematical analysis, will be assisting you in
> developing a single-winner method with this constraint.  A while ago, David
> showed that when there is a Condorcet Winner, it is possible for the method
> to satisfy IIA without contradiction.  At the time, he regarded IIA as being
> highly desireable, which would suggest that the Condorcet Winner criterion
> might also be important to him.  Comments, David?

I have no real interest in developing single-winner methods beyond
demonstrating that single-winner methods all generate significant
paradoxes that are emeliorated by the addition of more winners.

I don't really bang away for the Condorcet Winner criterion in its
single-winner form (though it becomes more appealing in its
multi-member analogues). It is subverted by the realities of the two-party
system and real applications of single-winner election systems in ward
systems. My fave single-winner method, I guess, is "FTC," which works by
going through three-way contests of candidates (just as Condorcet methods
go through two-way contests), choosing a winner for each three-way
contest by STV. If a candidate wins all three-way contests in which she is
considered, she wins. If no-one wins like this, then a completion method,
for instance removal of the candidate with the lowest number of highest
rankings on votes, would be used to continue on.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Politeness be sugared, politeness be hanged,
Politeness be jumbled and tumbled and banged.
It's simply a matter of putting on pace,
Politeness has nothing to do with the case.
						Norman Lindsay
						"The Magic Pudding"


















Is anyone with me in thinking Craig is a pathological maniac? I wonder
what his co-workers and/or family think...