[Election-Methods] Fwd: FYI - FairVote MN Responds to Lawsuit Against IRV

[Kathy Dopp]

On Dec 26, 2007 6:53 PM, Juho Laatu <juho.laatu at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Condocet methods do not put any additional weight on first position
> on the ballot. Vote Gore>Bush>Paul>Nader is considered to be equally
> strong in saying "Gore is better than Bush" than e.g. vote
> Nader>Paul>Gore>Bush.

Juho,

Thanks for clarifying.  I understand better the method now.  So in
Condocet, if you really dislike a particular candidate, it is best as
a voter, to list all the other candidates in order of preference -
except for the one you might dislike the most?

>
> With votes
> 25: A>E>B=C=D
> 25: B>E>A=C=D
> 25: C>E>A=B=D
> 25: D>E>A=B=C

I do not get the "=" signs.  Do you mean that voters are limited to
listing two candidates in ranked order and that it does not really
matter what they list as their third choice since all third choice
candidates are equal?

> Condorcet methods elect E (since E would win any of the others 75-25
> in a pairwise comparison). E didn't have a single first place
> supporter but many obviously considered E to be a good compromise. Is
> this ok to you?

Yes. I think this Condocet method actually gives a reason for using
ranking with multiple candidates.  I think IRV is awful, but this
seems to be OK.

>
> Condorcet methods simply collect the pairwise preferences from the
> ballots and base the decision on that data (without any potentially
> unfair elimination rounds).

Yes. This is far fairer and makes more sense to me than IRV.

> Putting more weight on the first
> preferences is not used, mainly since it would then be more
> problematic to keep the method sufficiently strategy free (=voters
> can now quite safely mark their sincere preferences on the ballot).

Yes that does seem true - although I have not sat down to really
ponder and study it because I'm working on other things like achieving
verifiably accurate vote counts which I believe are more crucial first
steps.

It is very important IMO that voters can actually mark their sincere
preferences without having to strategize and hypothesize on what other
voters may do to overcome the flaws of the system like is necessary
with IRV.

Kathy

>
> Juho
>
>
>



-- 

Kathy Dopp

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Kathy Dopp's fact-finding and investigative efforts. Dopp is a
Mathematician, Expert in election audit mathematics and procedures; in
exit poll discrepancy analysis; and can be reached at

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