[EM] why is covered vs. uncovered important?

[Ted Stern]

Forest Simmons ("sprucing up") and Jobst Heitzig (Short Ranked Pairs), among
others, have posted Condorcet completion methods that involve searching for a
winner from among the uncovered set of candidates.

What are the special properties of the uncovered set?  Are they worth shooting
for, even if a covered candidate beats the uncovered winner?

In Jobst's "strength vs. length" SRP posting, for example,

http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2004-November/014208.html

the covered set is {X1,X2,X3}.  Eliminating all other candidates, X3 wins
among uncovered candidates.  But X4, a covered candidate, defeats X3 with greater
strength then beatpaths 

         X3  >  X5  >  X4         X3  >  X2  >  X4
             11     26                27     10

Unless I'm missing something here ...

Ted
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