[EM] Looking for a little voting insight...

[Dave Ketchum]

On Thu, 4 May 2006 20:51:51 -0700 (PDT) D CarySys wrote:

> On Tue May 2 22:31:33 PDT 2006,  Matthew Welland wrote:
> 
...> 
> 
> On Wed May 3 11:29:21 PDT 2006, Dave Ketchum wrote:
> 
>  > i am getting rusty as to details, but noting strength of defeats
>  > needs more thought - here he looks only at strength of victor, not at
>  > magnitude of difference.  25>5 is stronger than 26>24.
> 
> In the example, all ballots fully and strictly ranked all candidates -- 
> no explicit equal rankings and no truncated rankings resulting in 
> implicit equal rankings. In such a case, both the Schulze and Minimax 
> methods are insensitive to whether strength of victory is measured in 
> terms of margins or winning votes, avoiding the complications of that 
> issue and keeping the focus on the key differences of the two methods.


What is the purpose of this exercise?

If a theoretical exercise, not related to real elections - have your fun.

If simulating real elections:

If equal rankings were the one and only serious problem - not too bad to 
forbid them.  They let those enthused about approval vote their desired 
ballots.  Counting such ballots is trivial extra effort for Condorcet 
(much more difficult to decide on rules for this for IRV).

Forbidding truncation is a MUCH bigger deal:
      Makes you lots of enemies by making such a demand, which voters will 
recognize as unreasonable.
      You CANNOT force them to apply serious effort to ranking the bottom 
of the pot.  Try and they will still minimize the effort they apply to 
sorting out that bottom.

BTW - I remain a serious backer of Condorcet - just care about this detail.

> 
> -- David Cary

-- 
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  Dave Ketchum   108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY  13827-1708   607-687-5026
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