[EM] Re: Condorcet package-wvx

[Dave Ketchum]

On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 00:01:11 -0800 Russ Paielli wrote:

> Let raise both a practical and a theoretical concern about equal 
> rankings in Condorcet voting.
> 
> First the practical concern. Think about how an equal-ranking capability 
> would would work on a touch-screen voting machine. I've actually 
> designed and programmed a full-featured GUI for voting 
> (http://ElectionMethods.org/GVI.htm), so I have thought about it a bit. 
> My GVI does not allow equal rankings (unless you are using it for 
> Approval). The candidates are ranked in the order they are selected 
> (with backtrack capability, of course). How would the voter tell the 
> machine to rank two candidates equal? The voter would have to press a 
> button or do something to indicate that the next selection should be 
> made equal to the previous selection. You may consider that simple 
> enough, but let me tell you that it would be a *major* sticking point in 
> practice. Remember all those brilliant Gore voters in 2000 who couldn't 
> figure out how to vote for their candidate in a simple plurality election?


I see you have a different picture.

Mine starts with the paper absentee ballot, where I see no way to move the 
names around, and place a box beside each name for the voter to enter 
rank.  Trying to make it easy, I say that 2 beats 5, whether or not there 
is a rank 3 or 4 between them.

Having got this far, a voter could rank two 3s, which I accept as equal.

Having done as easy as I know how on paper, I find it easy to do the same 
thing on touch-screen.

> 
> On the theoretical side, what exactly would an equal-ranking capability 
> accomplish? Does it give the voter some significant strategic mechanism, 
> or is it simply way for the voter to express indecision? If it's the 
> latter, then it is completely unnecessary. If the voter truly rates the 
> candidates as precisely equal down to the tenth decimal place, then it 
> really shouldn't matter to him which he ranks above the other. If the 
> decision is really that difficult, he can flip a coin. Why make the 
> system more complicated than it needs to be?


Conceded it complicates the counting, though I do not see that as major.

I see it as decision, rather than indecision, when the voter decides to 
rank 2 or more candidates as tied.

We seem unsure whether wv counts =  - if we decide wvx is not worth doing, 
seems like we should agree that wv DOES NOT count =.


> 
> --Russ

-- 
  davek at clarityconnect.com    people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek
  Dave Ketchum   108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY  13827-1708   607-687-5026
            Do to no one what you would not want done to you.
                  If you want peace, work for justice.