[Election-Methods] Borda-elimination, a Condorcet method for public elections?

[Diego Santos]

Ian,

I do not understand your argument. Borda elimination is not so simple to
comprehend for all voters. If is not possible to use Schulze or MAM in an
election, perhaps pairwise sorted plurality would be a easy alternative:

"If no beats-all candidate exists, eliminate the plurality loser".

Like Nanson and Baldwin, this method meets Smith but violates monotonicity
and cloneproofness, but opposite to Borda elimination, it meets summability
and dominant mutual third.

2007/12/21, Ian Fellows <ifellows at ucsd.edu>:
>
> Markus,
>
> Thank you for your insight. I certainly agree with you that only the best
> method should be used, but I would pose to you the question: Why is it
> that
> the best method isn't used?
>
> You and I (though not some others) would agree that the condorcet
> criterion
> is the correct one when determining the outcome of single winner
> elections,
> and yet they are not used in any public election anywhere in the world.
> Though the current best methods (Yours, and Ranked Pairs), are relatively
> new, Condorcet methods have been around for quite a long time. So the
> newness of the methodology can't be the reason. The difficulty in changing
> an electoral system once it has been started certainly plays a part, but
> IRV
> seems to be making significant inroads in this area whereas Condorcet
> methods are not.
>
> I think the answer lies in looking at the organizations that have adopted
> the Schulze method.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schulze_method
>
> 44 organizations, and almost all of them are technically oriented.
>
> The answer seems to me to be clear, complexity. Though beat-path is the
> best
> methodology, and the one that I would use in any professional organization
> that I was a part of, it violates a principle of democracy. For an
> election
> method to be "of the people" the people must be able to understand its
> implementation. They must be able to understand why one leader was picked,
> and not another, and further, how their ballot played a part in that
> decision.
>
> This begs that question of whether there is a Condorcet method simple
> enough
> for everyone to understand, and yet having the greatest number of
> desirable
> properties. Perhaps one answer might be in Borda-elimination methods. They
> are the only ones to have ever been used in public elections, and have
> very
> little added complexity when compared to IRV. IRV has had a great deal of
> success in being adopted, so we know that voters can handle something as
> complex as IRV.
>
> Borda-elimination also stacks up favorably when compared to anything but
> ranked pairs and Schulze. The only criteria that it doesn't pass are local
> IIa, monotonicity and independence of clones.
>
> non-monotonicity, while weird, doesn't imply that the candidate chosen is
> in
> any way inferior to a candidate chosen under a monotonic rule. I would
> have
> thought that the main reason why you would want a monotonic rule is so
> that
> people would accept it as valid. This does not appear to be an issue as
> IRV
> is non-monotonic, and is well liked. There are some possible issues
> regarding additional sussepability to strategy, but I'm not sure how
> serious
> those would be. Also, like all condorcet methods, Borda-elimination is
> monotonic if there is a Condorcet winner.
>
> local IIa and independence of clones are not passes, and this is an
> inferiority. but at least it passes them when there is a Condorcet winner.
> I
> seriously doubt that clones would be a big problem outside FPP, where
> vote-splitting is rampant.
>
> So guess I'd ask if the minor theoretical deficiencies are not made up for
> by the additional simplicity in populations that would have difficulty
> understanding beat-path? Why do you think that no Condorcet method has
> been
> adopted by any government?
>
>
> Ian
> http://thefell.googlepages.com
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: election-methods-bounces at lists.electorama.com
> [mailto:election-methods-bounces at lists.electorama.com]On Behalf Of
> Markus Schulze
> Sent: Friday, December 21, 2007 1:47 PM
> To: election-methods at electorama.com
> Subject: Re: [Election-Methods] Borda-elimination, a Condorcet method
> for public elections?
>
>
> Dear Ian Fellows,
>
> the Nanson method and the Baldwin method violate
> monotonicity and independence of clones. They also
> violate the desideratum that candidates, who are not
> in the Smith set, should not have any impact on the
> result of the elections.
>
> When you try to get a Condorcet method adopted somewhere,
> you will not only be attacked by the FPP supporters and
> the IRV supporters. You will also be attacked by the
> supporters of all kinds of election methods. Therefore,
> it will not be sufficient that you argue that the
> proposed method is better than FPP and IRV; you will
> rather have to argue that the proposed method is the
> best of all methods. Therefore, it is useful to propose
> a Condorcet method that satisfies a large number of
> criteria.
>
> Furthermore, I don't think that it makes much sense to
> try to find a Condorcet method that looks as much as
> possible like IRV or as much as possible like Borda.
> The best method according to IRV's underlying heuristic
> will always be IRV; the best method according to the
> underlying heuristic of the Borda method will always
> be the Borda method. It makes more sense to propose
> a Condorcet method that stands on its own legs.
>
> Markus Schulze
>
>
>
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>
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-- 
________________________________
Diego Santos
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