[EM] river, ROACC (terminolgy, again)

[James Green-Armytage]

seppley at alumni.caltech.edu writes:
>Aren't all the voting methods we've been promoting 
>both anonymous and neutral?  Doesn't that mean
>none of them are entirely non-random?
>
>   50%:  A > B
>   50%:  B > A

	Actually, I might prefer voting methods which report a tie in this
situation, and do not chose between A and B. Hence there is no random
element.

	As to the terminology, I don't feel strongly about it, but I think
"non-deterministic" is fine. Here are some dictionary definitions of
"deterministic"
1. "an inevitable consequence of antecedent sufficient causes."
2. "<probability> Describes a system whose time evolution can be predicted
exactly."
	So, if a method has no random element, the result is an inevitable
consequence of the ballots cast. If it has a random element, then you
can't exactly predict the result by looking at the ballots.
	Makes sense to me.

James

P.S. Cheers to James Gilmour for applying the word "stochastic". That fits
well, plus it has always been one of my favorite words.
Stochastic: "involving a random variable".