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

Diego Santos diego.renato at gmail.com
Fri Dec 21 20:22:45 PST 2007


A correction:

2007/12/22, Diego Santos <diego.renato at gmail.com>:
>
> 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.


Where I said "dominant mutual third" I really would wanted to say "third
burial resistance". This criterion is not met by Schulze neither MAM.

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
> >
> >
> >
> > ----
> > Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list
> > info
> >
> >
> > ----
> > Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list
> > info
> >
>
>
>
> --
> ________________________________
> Diego Santos
>
>


-- 
________________________________
Diego Renato dos Santos
Graduado em Ciência da Computação
Integrante do projeto Wireless(Petrobras/DEE-UFCG)
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