[EM] Russ, 4/6/05, 2232

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

Russ says:

That's all well and good, but you can't hide from the fact that when you
drop a pairwise defeat you are ignoring the majority of voters who voted
in that particular pairwise race. That's right: you are IGNORING THE
MAJORITY of the voters in that race. Why do you have such little respect
for majorities, and what gives you the right to overrule them?

I reply:

If it would make you feel any better, elect the entire circular tie. Someone 
recently suggested that, in polls, we should declare the entire Schwartz set 
as winners. I agreed. And also in organizations and governments that are 
willing to have a joint presidency.

Then, at least if the public collectively  say that X is better than Y, you 
aren't electing Y but not X.

But, you see, the problem is that sometimes it really is necessary to elect 
just one.

Your strongly-felt concern is expressed in a way that suggests that you 
thought that you were saying something original. As if you had never seen my 
standard speech comparing wv and margins with regard to the ethics and 
fairness of overruling public pairwise choices. Perhaps you didn't read that 
paragraph before posting it at your website.

I always say that, if everyone has a pairwise defeat, and we have to elect 
just one person anyway, then that means that we have to elect some X, and 
not Y, when the public has said that Y is better than X. I always then say 
that that means that we're overruling a voted public choice, and I always 
say that we shouldn't do that lightly. That's why we should try to minimize 
the number of voters we're doing that to. WV looks at that number. That's 
one reason why wv is better than margins, but there are other reasons to, 
such as the strategy guarantees that wv offers.

Mike Ossipoff

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