[EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
Dave Ketchum
davek at clarityconnect.com
Mon Nov 10 10:10:21 PST 2008
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.
If you want peace, work for justice.
More information about the Election-Methods
mailing list