[EM] Monotonicity, but Participation too

[Blake Cretney]

On Sun, 16 Jul 2000, Markus Schulze wrote:
> Dear Blake,
> 
> you wrote (15 July 2000):
> > Would you say that it is possible for one method to provide on
> > average better government or decisions than another?  If not,
> > what do you see as the purpose of electoral reform?
> 
> To my opinion, in so far as it is not possible to measure the
> quality of the government or the decisions in an objective manner,
> it is not feasible to say that the one election method is more
> often "correct" than the other method. 

Dear Markus,

So, is your position that it is impossible for the choice of
electoral method to affect the quality of government?  Or that we
have no hope of choosing methods that provide better government?

Recall my meaning of "correct":

> I will take it as agreed, then, that it is possible for 
> one answer for a particular set of ballots to on average 
> provide better government than another.  If that is true,
> then we might call any best-government answer "correct"
> and any other answer "incorrect".

Would you say that in the following situation,

70 A > B
30 B > A

that we cannot say whether A or B is the correct choice, in the sense
that I am using the word "correct"?  That is, that we cannot say
which choice will in general provide the better government.

---
Blake Cretney