[EM] FWD - Borda Count and Donald Saari

[I like Irving]

  ----------- Forwarded Letter ------------
From: barnes99 at uwosh.edu
Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2001 00:50:10 -0000
To: donald at mich.com
Subject: Borda Count and Donald Saari

Don:

Donald Saari, a leading mathematician in votng theory who's analysis
shows that the Borda Count is the only method which does not violate
certain mathematical symetries, [is] visiting my campus soon. If you
could interview him, what questions would you like to ask?

Thank you,
Steve Barney

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Dear Steve Barney,

     I would like to ask if he knows of any place in the world where
Approval or Borda or Bucklin elections are being conducted on a regular
basis?  If so, is it possible to obtain the results of these elections?  I
would not need copies of the ballots, just the sums of the different
combinations.  My interest is to study the results of real elections of
these types in the real world.  I expect to see about fifty percent of the
voters merely making one vote, but I have no proof of this.
     Outside of that I am not interested in his mathematics.  I feel he has
most likely designed his math to fit his need to publish, it works for him.
I do not expect any question put to him would have any affect on the
position he has taken, his mind and book are set.
     It's a shame when people, who have studied mathematics, have no
mathematical sense of right or wrong.  There are persons like that on the
Election Methods list.
     It's a waste of time to be concerned about these types of people, but
I do enjoy making fun of them.

     I would suggest to him that he should never use his mathematics to
design any physical object like a bridge.  I fear his math would short
change some structural members and cause the bridge to fail, just like his
Borda math short changes most members of the public.

Thank you for writing,

Regards, Donald Davison, who is now running four days behind with his email.

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