[EM] Re: Condorcet Criterion for plurality.

[DEMOREP1 at aol.com]

The insincere/ sincere problem arises from

Desired > Compromise (Tolerable) > Unacceptable (Intolerable)

Each of the Desired and Compromise choices either gets YES majorities or each 
does not (regardless of any other choices).

If a Desired choice cannot get a YES majority, then it is highly likely that 
some or all of the votes for a Compromise choice may be insincere.

My standard divided majority example again (Desired votes only)--

26 AB
25 BA
49 C

100

Is it rational to assume that ANY of the C voters will NOT make an insincere 
Compromise vote ???

The general case is -- which method(s) are likely to produce the least 
percentage of insincere (aka strategic) votes (noting that pre-election polls 
will exist -- assuming no dictatorship) ???

Obviously Plurality produces a fairly large percentage of insincere votes 
----- e.g. if ranked votes (or even Approval Voting) had been available for 
the 2000 U.S. President election, then how many *sincere* (Desired) and 
*insincere* (Compromise) votes would there have been for either Mr. Bush or 
Mr. Gore ???

Only the infamous Florida chads know for sure.

Legal note for U.S.A. voters- Due to the Bush v. Gore opinion in the U.S. 
Supreme Court on Dec. 12, 2000 the Equal Protection Clause in the14th 
Amendment will now be used to attack anything deemed *unequal* in the whole 
election process in the States in the U.S.A. (i.e. including any *reform* 
election method perceived to be *unequal*).

     See the Bush v. Gore opinion and dissents at

http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-949.ZPC.html

See the Rehnquist opinion regarding the instructions used in Florida 
punchcard precincts-- apparently too difficult to understand by some 
percentage of the voters (who were not university graduates with a doctorate 
in math).

In other words-- any reform election method has to deal with a somewhat 
dumber than a doorknob electorate (and/or reptile-brain partisan incumbents 
in legislative bodies who would make any statutory reforms and in the know- 
it- alls in the media who would bring up every possible defect of any 
possible reform method).

Thus, pending a utopian rise of about 50 percentage points in political/math 
I.Q. in the general population, any reform method *must* be rather simple in 
the U.S.A.     

Note to non U.S.A. folks on this list -- enjoy any *advanced* election method 
that you have.    The U.S.A. is in the political Stone Age with plurality 
(combined with the various indirect minority rule gerrymanders for electing 
the U.S.A. Congress, the U.S.A. President (the infamous 12th Amendment 
Electoral College) and every house of every State legislature in the U.S.A.).