[EM] summary answers

[Simmons, Forest]

________________________________

Dear Curt, you described your example as 51 mild supporters of A and 49 passionate supporters of B, but how about
 
51 A(100), B(99)
49 B(60), A(40)
 
The 51 seem more enthusiastic (if not passionate) than the 49, and B seems to be a more moderate candidate.
 
Not knowing anything about the qualifications of A or B,  but being forced to mediate this election, I would tend to favor B, but I would be willing to give A a fair chance in a random ballot drawing.  Otherwise the 51 voters would see a slight reward for insincerely down rating B, and these honest ballots would be increasingly rare in future elections.
 
When elections give a fair chance to everybody, there is little incentive to manipulate one's way into a better position.  In the long run, the interests of democracy are better served when the pressure is lowered by a pinch of potential randomness, where appropriate.
 
I f  there is a Condorcet Winner, and this CW is also the approval winner, in that case there is no need for a random drawing, which is why I say "potential" randomness.
 
Otherwise, at minimum each member of the set P (consisting of candidates that pairwise beat every candidate with greater approval ) should have a chance at winning.
 
Sometimes I think that P should be expanded to include all candidates that have a beat path to the approval winner.
 
Forest
 
 
Curt wrote ...

Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2005 01:34:31 -0700
From: Curt Siffert <siffert at museworld.com>
Subject: [EM] summary answers

I am curious about the answers to the following questions regarding
Condorcet.  Forgive me if these are simplistic, I am kind of looking
for a summary of what the consensus is here:

1) Are there cases where you would consider a candidate outside the
Schwartz set to be the proper winner?
2) Are there cases where you would consider a candidate outside the
Smith set to be the proper winner?

I'm curious about that in terms of criteria/strategy, but I'm also
curious about it in a larger way - because I think I remember Mike
saying that if we could be assured of sincere ballots, he'd prefer the
Borda winner - even if there were a different Condorcet Winner.  I
disagree with that stance because I believe that it is simply more
appropriate to accord equal power to each voter, rather than allow a
passionate minority power over a less passionate majority.  Who's to
say the minority is not ignorant as well as passionate?  I guess an
alternate way of asking the larger question is:

3) In a two candidate race, if 51% mildly preferred A to B, and 49%
passionately preferred B to A, who should win?

I was surprised to find out that some of you might say "B".  If that is
true, then I find the discussion emphasis on Condorcet tiebreakers kind
of odd.  (For those of you who would say it depends on whether it is a
political vote... I might agree with that.  But I am mostly thinking of
political votes when I ask the question.)


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