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

[Dave Ketchum]

Conceded that some could like IRV, even after understanding what it does.

HOWEVER, what it does is hidden behind its advertising, and its popularity 
should plummet like a rock if a true description was seen by more.
      The description does not have to say "failure", as I see appropriate 
- just to note that while IRV usually awards the same winner as Condorcet, 
when it differs it can shock those who appreciate what Condorcet does by 
analyzing all that the voter says.

DWK

On Sat, 22 Dec 2007 14:45:18 -0000 James Gilmour wrote:
> Dave Ketchum > Sent: 22 December 2007 01:35
> 
>>The standard method of describing IRV skips its problem of failures due to 
>>not looking at all that the ballot says - so implied understanding aids 
>>its acceptance without bothering with true understanding.
> 
> 
> To say that the standard method describing IRV skips its problem of failures  _"due to not looking at all that the ballot says"_  is
> a statement based on a social choice interpretation of the ballot information, whereas the preferential information on an IRV ballot
> had a very different origin.  On an IRV ballot, the successive preferences are contingency choices, i.e. the second preference is to
> be brought into play ONLY if the first choice is no longer relevant, and so on.  An IRV ballot should be viewed as nothing more than
> recording on one occasion the choices that would be made in a fully exhaustive ballot, i.e. in an election with successive rounds
> which eliminate only one candidate at a time until there is a majority winner.  The only difference between IRV and the exhaustive
> ballot is that when you mark your successive preferences on an IRV ballot you do not know what the outcome of the preceding round
> would be.  (Some see that as an advantage, others see it as a disadvantage.)
> 
> If you wish to utilise in some way all the information that could be recorded on a preferential ballot, that is a completely
> different voting system from IRV, with different objectives.  The preferences are no longer 'contingency choices', but take on a new
> function depending on the detail of the voting system.  It is almost certain that the voters would mark their ballots in a different
> way in an election by such a voting system from how they would mark their contingency choices in an election by IRV.
> 
> So the "failure" of IRV is not that it does look at all that the ballot says, but rather that it has objectives different from the
> objectives of some other voting systems that some find more desirable.
> 
> James Gilmour
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