[EM] Not trying to take credit.

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

I should add that, regarding the things I've been saying & will
say about new methods & criteria, most of those ideas either
were either originated or refined by Steve Eppley. Particular
examples include, but aren't limited to, the idea of dropping
only from among those defeats that actually contradict eachother
regarding who should win--in other words, the defeats among the
innermost set of candidates unbeaten from without; and the
briefer wording for SD. Steve named that Least Contradicted
Majority. Maybe that's a better descriptive name than SD.
I use SD because it's what I've been using for a long time.
I defined SD a long time ago on this list, in the wordier of the
2 forms that I stated here, but its criterion compliances weren't
studied at that time.

It could be objected that, when referring to what I call a
"pairwise defeat", calling it a "defeat" could seem to be
referring to the final election outcome. Maybe, but my reply would
be that, in pairwise methods, a pairwise defeat _is_ what keeps
someone from being the winner, and getting rid of his pairwise
defeats makes him win.

The trouble with "majority" to mean pairwise defeat is of course
that it could be mistaken for a majority in the sense of more
than half of the voters. Majority is the word used by at least
some of Condorcet's translators for that meaning.

Mike Ossipoff

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com