[EM] Condorcet at SPI

[Markus Schulze]

Hallo,

since January 2003, the "Software in the Public Interest" (SPI) project
uses my beatpath method. However, they use an extreme way to handle
truncated ballots.

Wichert Akkerman wrote (7 Nov 2003):
> Vote preferences should be made by ranking the candidates. A vote
> that simply specifies "X" is does not imply preference. Your
> preference will be shown best when you specify all candidates in order
> of preference (i.e. "XYZWTUV"). Voting "XY" implies that you prefer
> candidate X to candidate Y but will not affect the races between X and
> the other candidates or Y and the other candidates. Voting for a single
> candidate has no meaning with this method and will not be possible.

In my opinion, this way to motivate the voters not to truncate their
ballots is too extreme. When there are many candidates then this way
to handle truncated ballots will make many voters use "donkey voting"
(aka "alphabetic voting" where the candidates are listed in an
alphabetic manner).

Markus Schulze