[EM] whipping-boy Borda

[Dgamble997 at aol.com]

James Green-Armytage wrote:

>My school, which is a pretty bizarre place, uses a pretty bizarre voting
>method for student government: Borda!
>Christ, I wondered, how the hell did they end up using Borda?
>What's even weirder is that they use Borda for multi-seat elections. Have
>you ever heard of that anywhere else?

The following article by M Schulze ( never heard of him! ) on something 
called Quota Borda was published in Voting Matters 15.

http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/publications/votingmatters/15P3.htm

I'm not particularly interested (or knowledgeable) about Borda Counts but the 
following seems a particularly bad example (whether it works depends on the 
treatment/ allowability of truncated ballots):

Year 1

 An election is held using Borda for a single seat. There are two candidates 
A and B. The voters give the following rankings:

12 A
40 A>B
30 B>A
18 B

A obtains 52 points (52x1 + 30x0), B obtains 48 points (48x1 + 40x0). A wins.

Year 2

This time there are 3 candidates A,B and C. The voters give identical 
rankings as in the previous election. Nobody expresses a preference for C making 
candidate C the most irrelevant of irrelevant alternatives.

12 A
40 A>B
30 B>A
18 B

This time the points are A= 52x2 + 30x1 and B= 48x2 + 40x1. A obtains 134 
points and B wins with 136 points yet identical ballots have been cast in both 
elections.

David Gamble




    
    

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