[EM] Query for Approval advocates

[Bart Ingles]

Eric Gorr wrote:
> 
> At 11:47 AM -0700 8/31/03, Bart Ingles wrote:
> >You could say that "B is obviously preferred by *majorities* of people
> >over every other option, but even so the "majorities" are merely
> >incidental.  B would be the CW without them:
> >
> >40: A
> >10: C>B
> >20: C
> >35: B>A
> >
> >Here B is preferred by *pluralities* of people over every other option,
> >but is still the CW.
> >
> >>  Now, the fact that I can point to a method that will select B is a
> >>  reason why I would prefer that method to a method that would select
> >>  something other then B.
> >
> >So do you still think the CW should win in the immediately preceding
> >example?
> 
> There is no good reason I can come up with which would indicate that
> B should not win as > 50% (i.e. a majority) of people in your example
> prefers B over both C and A.

I never said that B shouldn't win, merely that B is NOT preferred by a
majority over either A or C.  Only 45/105 prefer B to A, and only 35/105
prefer B to C.  A majority would require 53 votes.


> >  If so, your belief must be based on something other than
> >majority, since the only majority above is the 75:30 majority which
> >prefer A to C.
> 
> This is utterly meaningless as RP does not meet IIA. By ignoring B,
> you have essentially provided a completely different example from the
> one you gave above.

Who's ignoring B?  I already stated above that B was preferred by
pluralities over A and C, and was therefore the Condorcet winner.  I
merely state here that the only majority defeat in the example is A over
C, with 75/105 of the electorate.  I wasn't endorsing A as the winner, I
was merely pointing out that the CW (B) does not have the support of a
majority of voters over either A or C.

I'm not sure why you mention RP and IIA here.  However I do see hope in
the fact that you seem to regard A's majority over C as meaningless.  My
original point in responding to this thread was that "the very concept
of 'majority' is meaningless when there are three or more candidates."

Bart