[EM] The Coming California Single Seat Election

[Alex Small]

Adam Tarr said:
>
>>Well, since Condorcet is (to the best of my knowledge) never used in
>> public elections and rarely used in private groups, I don't know
>> whether the 0.5 votes each is a standard convention or not.  It
>> wouldn't change the margins, so it would be applicable to margins
>> methods.  Certainly it would be necessary for winning votes methods.
>
> No, absolutely not.  When you add half-votes, the results for winning
> votes  become identical to margins.  The whole point of winning votes is
> you only  count the votes FOR the candidate in a pairwise contest.

Poor phrasing on my part.  The "it" was the keeping of separate A>B and
B>A tallies.  I was replying to a reply to a message, and my use of
pronouns was sloppy.  I agree with your assessment that treating equal
rankings as half votes would be equivalent to margins.  I don't want a
margins vs. winning votes debate either.

>>Maybe
>>there's also a strategic advantage from intransitive rankings, and
>> Donald wants voters to have access to that option by allowing them to
>> vote A>B, B>C, C>A.
>
> Well, I don't think that's what Donald wants.  Moreover, it seems absurd
> to  give an individual voter the ability to submit an ambiguous ballot.
> Cyclic  ties can make sense for an electorate, but they can't make sense
> for a sane  individual.

No, that's probably not what Donald wants, but I was giving as much
benefit of the doubt as possible.



Alex