[EM] Definition of preferential voting

[Toplak Jurij]

During the last days the discussion on this list has focused primarily on the terminology. Coincidently I am working on a paper that tries to define "preferential voting". 

Literature offers numerous understandings and definitions:
- 'preferential voting' is often used as a synonim for Alternative Vote or IRV
- 'preferential voting' is sometimes used as another name for STV
- 'preferential voting' is often used to denote 'ranking methods' (thus including STV, AV, Borda, etc.)
- 'preferential voting is often used to denote a preference for a single candidate within List PR (this definition is used mainly in Europe)
- mathematicians put first-past-the-post in the group of preferential voting schemes, but approval voting is not a member of this group
- some authors put US primaries under 'preferential voting' (Katz, for instance)

Is it possible to define preferential voting at all?
I'd be grateful for any comments.

jure
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