[EM] Reply to Paul Kislanko

[Eric Gorr]

At 12:36 PM -0700 10/11/04, Dr. Ernie Prabhakar wrote:
>Hi Paul,
>
>>Perot is the clear Condorcet winner, but that cannot be the right result. If
>>you replace those names with A, B, C the result looks ok.
>
>I suspect the issue with your example is that:
>
>>45% Bush > Perot
>>10% Perot
>>45% Clinton > Perot
>
>is interpreted as:
>
>45% Bush > Perot > Clinton
>10% Perot > Bush = Clinton
>45% Clinton > Perot > Bush
>
>If people had explicitly marked their ballot as above, would you 
>still consider it "surprising" that Perot won?  If so, why?  Would 
>any other outcome be less surprising?

The fact that Perot wins in this case is, in part, what I like about 
Condorcet methods. When the two major factions are evenly split, the 
Condorcet method will find the compromise option. It would make far 
less sense to me for either of the larger factions to win in this 
case when neither has a majority (i.e. 50% + 1) support among the 
entire electorate.