CVD wants Alt.V to be fairer but it isn't: misleading website

[Craig Carey]

I am becoming concerned that I can't understand Demorep's position,
e.g. over the YES/NO methods. Demorep writes and people and so on and that
seems to displace mathematical analysis. He did call for reform, but my
motive is quite different: I state questions that have a real chance of
getting Demorep to state his stance over rules/criteria I list, and whatever
methods he will describe under the Section C requests.

Note: KISS means: Keep it simple stupid.


At 15:40 03.10.00 -0400 Tuesday, DEMOREP1 at aol.com wrote:
 >Demorep continues:
 >
 >U.S.A. voters are rather simple minded regarding math due to the massively
 >rotten public schools.
 >
 >I reply:
 >
 >Using Condorcet doesn't require any math. Anyone can rank their choices.
 >---
 >D- We have gone over this before many times.  Some of the public, media and
 >politicians with some brains will want to know exactly what is done with the
 >ranked votes (thus producing some instant math confusion).
 >
 >The more ABC, etc,  XYZ criteria that are thrown out as being absolutely
 >critical for an election method, the more the public will get confused and
 >keep same old rotten plurality.     Many folks are not quite so strategy/
 >conspiratorial minded as some folks on this list (especially regarding added
 >or removed votes from the ballot boxes).
 >
 >The well known KISS principle definitely applies for getting election 
reforms
 >in the U.S.A.
...


I suspect you were not going to tell us on whether you have principles,
and I don' see why the slight affair can't be cleanly finished with
nothing but a single attentive reply from Demorep. I have studied enough
of the "YES/NO" comments.

As a matter of importance, please write down using equations, the fully
general 3 candidate formula that receives 15 papers and that simple picks
a winner set under your "YES/NO" method. There have been defects in the
presentation. If you have already done this then give me some clues on
how to search at Egroups' archive.

These questions you might find a little troublesome because they tend to
assert implicitly a precision of thought that may be absent, i.e. they
presume an error. I hope not too many of my questions fall away due to
that.




SECTION A OF THE QUESTIONS:

Can you send a message in to the list that states whether or not all your
good satisfactory proposals are subject to the following constraints:

(1) will the method always return the right number of winners ?.

(2) does the method truncation resistance test (for all numbers of winners
      for which it is defined) ?.

(3) does the method show any monotonicity violation?. If it is truncation
      resistant then you can reply by stating whether P1 is held.

(4) [I'll omit questioning your position on limitation of powers of papers]


Please provide separate responses to each separate question unless there is
a problem with that. In the latter case, please state the nature of the problem
and detail its basis.



SECTION B OF THE QUESTIONS:

Please state the strictness with which you uphold the rules [multiple 
responses can be made here]:

    (i)   the rules are held strictly
    (ii)  the rules are to test only for the one winner case
    (iii) the rules are aims [show the mathematics proving that you do indeed
          make them aims]
    (iv)  please state if the rules are variably applied, e.g. fully withdrawn
          when you wish to assert a contradictory rule. If that is done then
          answer (B)(i) would not be made.

The 4 section B requests apply to all of the 3 Section A requests, making a 
total
of 15 requests or up to 15 requests.




SECTION C OF THE QUESTIONS:

(a) Please explain any principles you may have that allow other principles to 
be
     deemphasized or neglected, or transiently rejected, when contradicted.

(b) Please list all your methods. This request is not made if the format
     your would use when responding is not the use of mathematical equations.
     [Note: the readers start out by assuming the methods are bad and using
     legal text language is a true impediment to identifying problems. It
     seems to me you might be using legal language to produce a feeling that
     your methods can't be changed at all easily. Why not simply translate
     them to an easy to understand form, and allow us to check if they pass
     the rules. You probably can't check them against the statements you
     make to Section A unless you first put them into a mathematical form,
     so there is some real chance I am requesting information you already
     hold (i.e. that I am not requesting the producing of new information).

(c) Do you have different methods for a dumb or uneducated public, from the
     methods you'd find better for say, a maths room full of mathematicians.
     Are bad methods better for dumb people?. What is the limitation on the
     so called "KISS principle" you wrote on?. Has a KISS principle got a
     sufficient [nucleus cross section] to hid a bad method under?.


I say that a legal document format is most unwanted and the precision
and open clarity of a small number of lines of mathematics expression is
preferable (otherwise a computer program style representation). I for one
have not been reading you legalistically worded methods. In the case of
the YES/NO method I am not sure I have a perfect understanding of the
method. It seems to be some sort of Approval Vote. Can arguments against
the Approval Vote be shifted against your methods.




PROCEDURAL

A reply within 5 working days would be satisfying to me. Separate out the
responses you make that were not requested, from the information that I did
request in the 3 sections.

Thanks, and I look forward to being able to follow your messages in the
future.




APOLOGY

The whole EM list is interested in Demorep's contributions.

A KISS principle at worst is a rule that passes only one method: the
method that returns no winners. Reqest C(a) requests comments on that.

Note that I am not easily able to follow legalistically presented ideas.
We shouldn't get them when we believe your ideas are wrong/bad and if
written concisely and algebraically, then that could be seen readily.
Maybe you want to reject this an write an essay on the best form for
the presenting of ideas that aren't getting absorbed at all well (e.g.
the YES/NO method).



G. A. Craig Carey
Auckland