[EM] Condorcet for public proposals

[Dave Ketchum]

On Thu, 29 Jan 2004 13:02:23 -0500 Adam Tarr wrote:

> At 12:55 PM 1/29/2004 +0100, Markus Schulze wrote:
> 
>> MinMax (aka PC) violates reversal symmetry and independence of clones.
>> The Libertarian Free State Project uses MinMax to decide which state
>> is the most suitable state for their purposes. Of course, independence
>> of clones was not an issue when they decided to use MinMax since you
>> cannot nominate e.g. 10 different New Hamshires.
> 
> 
> Yes, but (for instance) you could nominate both north and south Dakota, 
> when all Dakota advocates agree that North Dakota is the better of the two.
> 
>> Mike Ossipoff wrote (28 Jan 2004):
>> > The circular
>> > tie solution is what gives the method further properties and advantages,
>> > beyoned CC, but maybe the pairwise-count should be the up-front 
>> offering.
>> > As was suggested, that should be the main offering, and the circular tie
>> > solution should be offered as a footnote.
>>
>> When you promote Condorcet in general and treat the concrete tie-breaker
>> only in a footnote, then the following will happen:
>>
>> (bad things snipped)
> 
> 
> Those are certainly true if you fail to define your tie-breaker 
> altogether.  But if the nuts and bolts of the method are fully 
> explained, just not emphasized, then there's no rational reason that 
> your opponents could use those tactics.
> 
I am trying for better than Adam's following words:

Usually one candidate is best in each of its comparisons with other 
candidates - and therefore wins.

Otherwise we have a near (or possibly true) tie such as A>B AND B>C AND 
C>A, and must resolve which of these inequalities to ignore.

(seems to me there should be that much up front for everyone to read - 
even the man-on-the-street should get that much - as Adam says, details 
need to be conveniently available to all who care)

> For example, you have a pamphlet that talks about using a ranked ballot, 
> and using the rankings to generate all the one-on-one, pairwise election 
> totals.  Then say that you elect the candidate with the "best" results 
> against all other candidates, adding that "generally one candidate will 
> win every contest he or she is involved in."  Then, at the end of the 
> pamphlet, "technical explanation of (name of method)", have a nice, 
> well-illustrated description of how you work through the election 
> (something like what Eric has put together for ranked pairs on his website).
> 
> The point is, you don't hide the tiebreaking procedure, you just don't 
> emphasize it.  The typical man-on-the-street probably won't even think 
> to ask, "what if there's a circular tie in pairwise preferences?", but 
> if he does, then he's probably smart enough to understand the answer.
> 
> -Adam

-- 
  davek at clarityconnect.com    people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek
  Dave Ketchum   108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY  13827-1708   607-687-5026
            Do to no one what you would not want done to you.
                  If you want peace, work for justice.