[EM] Re the "official" definition of "condorcet"

[Dave Ketchum]

Ok, not clear to me as an English-as-a-first-language speaker what the war 
is about, but I have to object to Paul's words.

I __do__ get to express my n x (n-1) / 2 pairwise preferences (part or 
all, as I as a voter choose).  I just am forced to be consistent.  If I 
vote A>B and B>Z, then I have voted A>Z.  If there is a C for which I have 
given no explicit specification, then my above partial vote implies A>C, 
B>C, and Z>C.

DWK

On Fri, 12 Aug 2005 20:35:05 -0500 Paul Kislanko wrote:

> RLSuter at aol.com wrote:
> 
> 
>>>--Actually, as a math PhD, what I understand is that the
>>>Condorcet criterion is NOT "already well-defined"
>>>
>>This mystifies me. I've long understood the Condorcet criterion
>>to mean that if one candidate would defeat all others in one to one
>>contests, that candidate is the Condorcet winner. None of the
>>definitions you cited, despite their differences and imprecisions
>>in wording, is inconsistent with this understanding as far as I
>>can tell. I also don't see how a math PhD would have any reason
>>to interpret this differently, or that regarding the meaning of the
>>Condorcet criterion, being a math PhD is any justification for
>>claiming to see distinctions that others don't see, since the math
>>required is elementary arithmetic. It's kind of like saying that
>>someone who knows 50 languages can understand English
>>sentences better than English only speakers can. It's possible,
>>of course, but far from certain, and in any case it's not for
>>one multi-language speaker alone to decide, since other
>>multi-language speakers might disagree.
>>
> 
> Even English-as-a-first-language speakers can grasp the problem.
> 
> It is that the Condorcet *Criterion* is not well-defined for any method that
> does specifically call for pairwise rankings _by the voters_. In general, it
> is UN-defined and probably un-definable, since when an election is held
> there is only one way to vote, and I do NOT get to express my n x (n-1) / 2
> pairwise preferences.

-- 
  davek at clarityconnect.com    people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek
  Dave Ketchum   108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY  13827-1708   607-687-5026
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