[EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)

[Dave Ketchum]

On Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:37:35 +0100 Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:
> Dave Ketchum wrote:
> 
>> On Sat, 08 Nov 2008 18:45:38 +0100 Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:
> 
...
> 
>>>> States have differing collections of candidates:
>>>>      In theory, could demand there be a single national list.  More 
>>>> practical to permit present nomination process, in case states 
>>>> desire such.
>>>>      Thus states should be required to prepare their NxN arrays in a 
>>>> manner that permits exact merging with other NxN arrays, without 
>>>> having to know what candidates may be in the other arrays.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> The easiest way to do this is probably to have the candidates sorted 
>>> (by name or some other property, doesn't really matter). When two 
>>> matrices with different entries are joined, expand the result matrix 
>>> as appropriate. Since the candidate indices are sorted, there'll be 
>>> no ambiguity when joining (unless two candidates have the same names, 
>>> but that's unlikely).
>>
>>
>> Two candidates with the same name is a problem to solve regardless of 
>> method.
>>
>> Sorting could be part of the joining, but I demand the results be 
>> exactly the same as if the ballots had been counted into the final 
>> matrix.  Doable, but takes a bit of planning.
> 
> 
> A possible tiebreaker for same names would be to prepend (or append) the 
> state of origin to each candidate name. In case two have the same name 
> in the same state, the state decides who gets to be "number one" and 
> "number two". These corner cases would be extremely unlikely, but it 
> doesn't hurt to specify them.

My point was that this is a problem affecting ANY election method, thus not 
needing special attention for Condorcet.
> 
> The results should be the same with a plain merge as with a single 
> count, since a Condorcet matrix entry cm[a][b] just lists how many 
> voters ranked A > B. Consider voters that couldn't vote on a given 
> candidate as if they had no effective preference regarding that 
> candidate. Then, by including the results of some other Condorcet 
> matrix, if A and B wasn't on that other matrix, cm[a][b] won't change.
> 
Not being sure what you mean by "simple merge", I will repeat my demand.

For example, assume A is a write-in which CANNOT be planned on but must be 
adjusted for when counting the ballots.  The national NxN array must 
include A reflecting proper counts for all votes in the US.  True that such 
an A is  unlikely, but to be expected more if you assume it will never happen.
-- 
  davek at clarityconnect.com    people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek
  Dave Ketchum   108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY  13827-1708   607-687-5026
            Do to no one what you would not want done to you.
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