[EM] IRV vs Condorcet vs Range/Score

[Dave Ketchum]

Hopefully we are picking a method that will:
      See the CW if one exists and thus elect that one.
      See the cycle if there is no CW, and elect the best member of the 
cycle.  Identifying the best member of a cycle is difficult and method must 
be defined as part of choosing the method.

On Sat, 11 Oct 2008 19:42:48 -0700 (PDT) Aaron Armitage wrote:
> Condorcet methods are the application of majority rule to elections which
> have more than two candidates and which cannot sequester the electorate
> for however many rounds it takes to produce a majority first-preference
> winner. If we consider majoritarianism an irreducible part of democracy,
> then any method which fails to elect the CW if one exists is unacceptable.

The strategic voting is tricky, and, if wanted, might be better used to 
cause a chosen candidate to become CW.

To cause a profitable cycle is a bigger project:
      Estimate the expectable vote counts without your strategy.
      Calculate the changes needed to get to the intended cycle without 
creating a different cycle or unwanted CW.
      Get cooperative voters to know and do desired voting.
      But avoid others finding out and doing votes in response that back 
their desires.
> 
> Which particular method is chosen depends on what you want it to do. For
> example, if we at to make it difficult to change the outcome with
> strategic voting Smith/IRV would be best, because most strategic voting
> will be burying a potential CW to create an artificial cycle in the hopes
> that a more-preferred candidate will be chosen by the completion method. A
> completion method which is also vulnerable to burial makes this worse, but
> Smith/IRV isn't because it breaks the cycle in a way the ignores all
> non-first rankings.
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  Dave Ketchum   108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY  13827-1708   607-687-5026
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