[EM] The responsiveness of Condorcet / Monotonicity

[Rob Speer]

On Mon, Jul 14, 2003 at 06:21:34PM -0400, Dgamble997 at aol.com wrote:
> Eric Gore wrote:
>> What about situations where PR is not appropriate?
> 
> The only situations when PR is not appropriate is when PR is not possible. In 
> those instances ( for a single position) we are left with trying to use the 
> least bad single seat method.
> 
> Whilst leaving to one side what Arrow may or may not have said about 
> monotonicity. I think the following:
> 
> Monotonicity is undoubtedly a desirable feature of an electoral method. I do 
> however feel that no method can be perfect and that other features are more 
> important ( proportional representation of parties, proportional representation 
> of opinion, maximum freedom of  voter choice regarding the individuals who 
> represent you, etc).

There's no such thing as proportional representation when there is a
_single winner_. Not lots of single winners all over the country, but
one single winner.

An example of a single-winner vote: A committee is voting on which of
four mutually exclusive resolutions to adopt. They cannot adopt the
resolutions proportionally. There aren't parallel committees in other
places that are deciding the same thing. There is just one committee
trying to come to one decision.

This kind of situation happens far more often than nationwide political
elections.

In a situation where only one choice wins, and thus there can be
nothing proportional at all about the result, do you still believe IRV
is the "least bad" method?
-- 
Rob Speer