[EM] The "Fresh Egg" winner - beyond Condorcet's pairs

[Dave Ketchum]

On Sat, 5 Jul 2003 03:45:22 -0500 Tom Ruen wrote in part:

> Dear EMers,
> 
> I've been on this list in the past, and just rejoined in hopes of some feed
> back on an idea I've developed lately.
> 
> Has anyone else considered looking at subset elections like Condoret, but
> looking beyond pairwise preferences?
> 
> I've looked at this before, but now I have some new insights.
> 
> My primary motivation has been the offensive case of a candidate winning
> Condorcet pairs while being in DEEP last place in the plurality count (Like
> the horrible case: AC=49%, BC=48%, CB=3%).


Perhaps new insight should include recognizing that this is a normal 
result, in some circumstances, of voters having the freedom of expression 
offered by ranked ballots.  Suppose:
      A has convinced about half the voters that taxes MUST be INcreased.

     B has convinced about half the voters that taxes MUST be DEcreased.
     C is only into some government cleanup with current taxes.


The A and B voters do their best to get their candidate elected.

For each, voting for C as second choice, and hopefully electing C if their 
first choice loses, is preferable to helping the true enemy get elected.

> 
> I can accept such a winner on grounds of a "fair" compromise, but it doesn't
> follow the election tradition that expects a candidate to have a dedicated
> core support to win. My idea is to look at competition among all subsets of
> candidates, including the full set to pick a winner.
> 

Maybe time for new traditions.  A and B had core support.  They also each 
had core enmity, and ranked ballots allowed both support and enmity to be 
expressed.


> To define my method, I look at the Condorcet winner.
> 
> Here's a possible definition of Condorcet's Winner:
> Condorcet's Winner is the a candidate that can avoid last place in all
> pairwise subset elections. (There are (N^2-N)/2 = N*(N-1)/2 such subsets
> among N candidates.)


While this is true, it is also tortured to the point of being offensive to 
many, whose goal in elections is winning.

> 
> Now here's my extended definition which I call a "Fresh Egg" winner:
> A "Fresh Egg" winner is a candidate that can avoid last-place in all subset
> elections of two or more candidates, including the full set of candidates.


Not worth the complication unless it does something valuable - and, you 
admit later it does not even change the winner in the above example.

Identifying CWs from the matrices is simple enough that voters can 
identify the CW, or members of the cycle in a near tie - worth keeping 
this simplicity as an asset.

> 
...

> 
> I would also like to point out that whenever a FE winner exists, the IRV
> winner will agree since such a FE winner can never be in last place in any
> subset in the IRV elimination process. Therefore when a Fresh Egg Winner
> exists, IRV and Condorcet will agree on a winner. I think this is pretty
> cool. The FE criterion is a parent or ancestor method to both methods!


OOPS!  IRV has many horror stories in which it rejects the Condorcet 
Winner due to making its decisions without looking at ALL that the voters 
have said.

> 
> Thanks for listening.
> 
> Sincerely,
> Tom Ruen

-- 
davek at clarityconnect.com  http://www.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek
  Dave Ketchum   108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY  13827-1708   607-687-5026
            Do to no one what you would not want done to you.
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