[EM] "wrong way elections"

[raphfrk at netscape.net]

From: Warren Smith <wds at math.temple.edu>

>The list of 4 reasons were:
>
>>    * The idea of a "wrong" winner of an election implies that one
>> or more "right" winners exist, which is inherently biased. The idea
>> that the "right" winner is defined as the one that "most of the
>> populace would have preferred" is also biased, because some voting
>> systems are explicitly designed to use other factors than plain 
majorities.
>>    * The text is biased. Wrong-way elections are "pathologies" and
>> "alter history, presumably usually for the worse"?
>>    * The examples are poor. Other than the Gore-Bush election,
>> which is adequately covered elsewhere, the only example is that of
>> Allende. The article even admits that the sole source cited in this
>> example uses its references inappropriately.
>>    * The mathematical properties of voting systems are already
>> covered in the articles
>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_system>Voting system and
>> 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_different_voting_systems_under_s
imilar_circumstances
>
>the replies to these are
>1. nonsense

You needed to say that the winner was not the cordorcet winner and
this has the following disadvantages.

and also the reasons need to be balanced.  You could link to
Duverger's law and the like.  Alot of the concepts are already there, 
so
you don't even need to explain them, you just need to link to them.

You could also say that and provide a link to the condorcet page.

You need to say why these other elections are bad based on defined
criterons.

Alternatively, you could list each election and say who won.  Then say
who would have won based on say condorcet, approval, IRV and range.

You can also explain why each election critera would be a good one 
(this might
be covered elsewhere).  The idea is that you don't say XXX voting 
method is
best, you give the person the info to make their own decision.  (and 
link it to
other pages)

> 2. pathologies is a standard word

I think your site (maybe) or someone's like it shows the economic 
effects
or PR-STV and FPTP elections.  The conclusion being that both have
advantages and disadvantages.

This is better than saying that they give bad results.

That could be an article on the "economic effects of election methods",
which you could link.

> 3. actualy there were over 20 examples, not just these 2, and I did 
not
> "admit" this, I "pointed it out to correct Saari's error"

Yeah, when I clicked on it, it was much longer.

> 4. those other articles did not give any list of historical examples, 
my article did.

I think that your article would be valuable, but you need to link it to 
those other
articles and don't say "this is a bad election method", say "the result 
of the election
does not satisify the condorcet criteron (with link).

The fundamental problem is that wikipedia is not for advocating a 
position.
It is just supposed to list all sides of the arguement.