[EM] nominations

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

Richard wrote:

Sounds like a race between all the good methods. But if we really want it

to be interesting shouldn't IRV, Borda, and Plurality be on the list as
well?

I reply:

Of course you could nominate them, but no doubt they won't do well,
especially if even their advocates don't nominate them. I suspect
the reason why IRV, for instance, hasn't been nominated is because
IRV advocates know that it wouldn't do well, and they'd much rather
that it not be mentioned in this poll than have it receive a really
poor showing in the poll.

Of course it would be interesting to find out how IRV, Borda, &
Pluarality do. But it's also perfectly ok to take their non-nomination
by their advocates  as
a sort of surrender.  Should we accept IRV's surrender, or should
we nominate it to show how it will do? It's up to you, because
anything can be nominated.  Either is fine with me. Non-nomination
would look very much like a bad poll-showing for IRV, it seems
to me. It goes without saying that nominating a method doesn't
mean that you like it.

By the way, I want to nominate an additional method: SD.

SD stands for Sequential Dropping. SSD is a refinement of SD.

SD says:

Drop the weakest defeat that's in a cycle. Repeat till there's an
unbeaten candidate.

[end of definition]

Markus has pointed out that SD can be nonmonotonic. But that doesn't
disqualify it as something to fight IRV with.

What SD has to recommend it is the fact that it's the simplest,
most briefly-defined, method that completely dominates IRV in
criteria.

As I said, CR has been nominated too.

Mike Ossipoff



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