[EM] Sports and 'The Condorcet Mindset'

[Alex Small]

> I may be wrong, but I think Dr. Saari's focus on symmetry is partly a
> product of the  difficulty of discussing nonlinear dynamics to a general
> audience.  My impression (I  have not attempted to read his work) is
> that Dr. Saari's support for Borda is based  on solid mathematics.

Picking criteria for accepting or rejecting methods must involve some
subjective judgements.  Saari uses solid math to elucidate various
properties of election methods.  He is 100% correct in pointing to certain
properties and saying "Borda has it, the others don't."  In that sense
Saari's work is solid.

However, whether or not the things that Saari points to are sufficient for
picking a method is another story.  Let us assume for a moment that all of
the geometric properties favored by Saari are socially desirable.  If
voters are honest then Borda is a socially desirable method.

However, because Borda gives huge incentives to vote insincerely in almost
every race, Borda is unable to achieve its stated advantages.  Granted,
all methods are prone to strategic voting, but some are more prone than
others.

I could go on, but the point is that Saari is 100% correct on the math,
but whether or not the method is desirable is still debatable.  As a
physicist I could solve equations to show that nuclear energy is great as
long as nothing goes wrong.  However, once something goes wrong new
questions arise.  (As an aside, I actually like nuclear energy, but that's
another story.)


> Borda may be a very good method for those unusual  situations where all
> voters can be expected and required to competently fully rank  all
> candidates.  Approval, Condorcet, and IRV don't require that all ballots
> provide  complete rankings and therefore are not in direct competition
> with Dr. Saari's less  than fully practical Borda.
>
> ----
> For more information about this list (subscribe, unsubscribe, FAQ, etc),
>  please see http://www.eskimo.com/~robla/em



----
For more information about this list (subscribe, unsubscribe, FAQ, etc), 
please see http://www.eskimo.com/~robla/em