[EM] Cycles in sincere individual preferences and application to vote-collection

[Eric Gorr]

At 12:04 PM -0500 9/6/04, Paul Kislanko wrote:
>Suppose I were a staunch "pro-life" believer, so "anti-abortion" is 
>my most important criterion. There are 5 candidates in the race, and 
>A & E are both anti-abortion, but have opposite views on gun control 
>(A for, E against) and capital punishment (A against, E for). B, C, 
>and D are all pro-choice, and either pro gun control or anti-capital 
>punishment or both. When asked to rank all 5 I give A>B>C>D>E.

I do not necessarily disagree with the point you are attempting to 
make, but this example is flawed for it is clear that the abortion 
issue is not the most important criteria.

It would seem that gun control is the most important issue here in 
determining how to rank the candidates or at least equivalent to 
abortion.

If the abortion issue was the _most important_ criteria, the only 
ranking that would appear to make sense would be:

A>E>B>C>D where the ordering B, C, D is arbitrary based upon the 
given parameters.