[EM] Re: Condorcet package-wvx

[Ted Stern]

On 24 Feb 2005 at 22:58 PST, Daniel Bishop wrote:
>
>>> At least for single-winner Condorcet elections, I don't think it's
>>> necessary to explicitly count X=Y as (0.5 X>Y + 0.5 Y>X) as long as
>>> they are equivalent in the sense of
>>>
>>>
>>
>>I'm not counting ranked ballots that way.  I'm arguing that what you say is
>>wrong: don't count any votes for one candidate OR the other when they are of
>>equal rank.  If it doesn't matter to you because you prefer margins, then
>>don't hobble wv unnecessarily.
>>
>>
> You totally reversed the meaning of my statement.  I said that (0.5 X>Y 
> + 0.5 Y>X) had no advantage over simply ignoring X=Y.  This is an 
> argument in favor of ignoring it: If the difference is unimportant, you 
> should do things the easy way.
>
> There are, however, other election methods in which it is not easy to 
> deal with equal rankings by simply ignoring them.  For example, how 
> would you count A=B>C in STV?  In this case, I think that counting the 
> ballot as 0.5 A>B>C + 0.5 B>A>C is the most logical thing to do 
> (although not perfect -- I'll write more on this tomorrow.)

Thanks for clearing that up, Daniel.  I apologize for misinterpreting what you
said.  I think we are in agreement now.

I maintain that in winning vote (wv) ranked Condorcet-based methods it is
proper, consistent and far more efficient to count equal rank as abstention;
i.e., no votes for any candidates against any others at the same rank.  If you
count equal rank some other way, it isn't "winning votes", it is something
else.  E.g., Dave Ketchum's variation is "wvx".  I would prefer that Rob
LeGrand and others who maintain web-based ranked ballot calculators using
half-vote splitting state clearly that they are using something different than
standard wv ranking, but of course I have no control over what they put on
their web sites.

In some non-Condorcet-based methods, I agree that there may be an advantage to
splitting the vote halfway in each contest, and there would be no net vote
creation.

However, if you apply this to STV, I would not call the resulting scheme STV,
or even fractional STV, since those terms denote two well-understood and
distinct methods that don't allow vote splitting (vs).  If you want to call
your new method STV(vs) or whatever, though, go ahead.

Ted
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