[EM] Anonymity & Neutrality. Results criteria & rules criteria.

[Chris Benham]

MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote:

>I probably haven't seen the official definition of Anonymity, but it goes 
>something like this:
>
>
>The same ways of voting must be available to all voters.
>
>For any configuration of voted ballots, it shouldn't make any difference 
>which person voted which ballot.
>
>[end of assumed Anonymity definition]
>
Douglas Woodall in a December 1994 paper defined  "Anonymity" thus:

"The result should depend only on the number of ballots of each possible 
type in the profile
(and not, for example, on the order in which they are cast, or on 
extraneous information such
as the heights of  the candidates)."

(Elswhere in the paper he explains that a "profile" is "a set of 
preference listings, such as might
represent the ballots cast in an election".)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/wood1994.pdf

So this version is broader, except that your first sentence is missing.
Regarding that, someone once suggested that a Range election could be 
held with different voters
having different numbers of slots available to them.


In the same paper he gives this definition of  "Neutrality":

"If  some permutation is applied to the names of  all the candidates on 
all the ballots in the profile,
then the same permutation should be applied to the result.  ...
One consequence of  Neutrality is that a tie in a single-seat election 
cannot be resolved simply by
electing the first in alphabetical order among the tied candidates".

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/permutation

> Main Entry: *per·mu·ta·tion* 
> <javascript:popWin('/cgi-bin/audio.pl?permut01.wav=permutation')>
> Pronunciation: "p&r-myu-'tA-sh&n
> Function: /noun/
> Etymology: Middle English /permutacioun /exchange, transformation, 
> from Middle French /permutation, /from Latin /permutation-, 
> permutatio, /from /permutare/
> *1* *:* often major or fundamental change (as in character or 
> condition) based primarily on rearrangement of existent elements 
> <land-owners and peasants... in the /permutation//s /of their tortured 
> interdependence -- P. E. Mosley>
> *2 a* *:* the act or process of changing the lineal order of an 
> ordered set of objects *b* *:* an ordered arrangement of a set of objects
> - *per·mu·ta·tion·al* 
> <javascript:popWin('/cgi-bin/audio.pl?permut02.wav=permutational')> 
> /-shn&l, -sh&-n^& l/ /adjective/



Chris  Benham





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