[EM] IRV vs Condorcet vs Range/Score

Chris Benham cbenhamau at yahoo.com.au
Sun Oct 12 21:18:31 PDT 2008


>"Low social utility (SU)" Condorcet winners with
>little solid support and depend for their status as the CW on weakly-held 
>lower preferences can begin to look quite chimera-like and not necessarily the
>only legitimate winner.
>

This seems to be a typical complaint that Condorcet will elect a
compromise rather than a candidate that anyone is excited about. But if a
candidate people are excited about assumes office over the CW, then by
definition the majority is ruled against its will by an enthusiastic
minority. Even supposing that this majority is itself composed of
incompatible minorities does not mean that a polity whose electorate is
broken into several minority factions should just let one of those
factions govern. Wouldn't the acceptable compromise be fairer and more
stable?

CB: Not necessarily, no. I have in mind something like (with sincere ratings):

49: A(99)  > C(2)  > B(1)
48: B(99)  > C(2)  > A(1)
03: C(99) > A(98) > B(1)

C is the CW, but A is a much more stable, much higher SU, arguably as
fair or fairer winner.

Perhaps you (Aaron) could answer my direct question about what you
mean by  "Smith/IRV".

Chris Benham

>One ok Condorcet method is Smith,IRV: voters strictly rank
>from the top however many candidates they wish, before each normal
>IRV elimination check for a candidate X that pairwise beats all
>the other remaining candidates, elect the first such X to appear.
>
>Is this what you mean by "Smith/IRV"? 

>I'm not sure if you suggested otherwise, but all
>methods that meet the Condorcet criterion are vulnerable to Burial 
>strategy.
 
>Chris Benham



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