[EM] Condorcet How? Abd

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 08:32 PM 4/10/2010, Kevin Venzke wrote:
>In a given election yes, it is easy to miss the mark. But in general,
>aiming for the median voter is the most reliable. (That is assuming you
>don't know utilities, which I'm really not sure you showed how to find.)
>To see this, you assume utility is based on issue space distance, and
>that the voters aren't distributed unevenly.

I didn't show how to find utilities, I only showed various 
possibilities consistent with the votes.

To study voting system performance, I'm saying, one must *start* from 
utilities, not from preference order without preference strength 
information. Voter behavior is not predictable without preference 
strength information. Strategy, in general, doesn't make sense 
without an understanding of preference strength.

>Thus when you have a situation where every voter chimed in on some
>question, and they didn't do that for any other question, you should
>expect (on average) a utility problem when the outcome goes against the
>majority opinion.

I'll agree that this is the "norm." However, it can go drastically wrong.

How can we detect the exceptions?

Sure, the majority criterion and the condorcet criterion are usually 
a sign of good performance, but it is obvious that exceptions exist, 
and we should not denigrate a voting system if it, under an exception 
condition, it violates the criteria!

I was just pointing out that the outcome you claimed was obviously 
bad wasn't. It might be that, on average, this outcome would be 
poorer than the other, but it was not a truly bad outcome, under 
reasonable assumptions of likely utility, the first utility scenario 
I gave, which used Range 2 utilities, i.e., normalized and rounded 
off so as to make all the votes sincere and sensible. The bullet 
voters then had equal bottom utilities for the other candidates, and 
those who ranked had stepped utilities. Simple. And showing that A 
was, indeed (with these assumptions, which seem middle-of-the-road to 
me), the utility maximizer, by a fairly good margin!

You can make a contrary assumption, that the A voters were 
"strategic." That they "really" would be happy with B. I'm assuming, 
instead, that their votes would be sincere. And likewise the votes of 
the other voters.

Look, A *almost* has a majority in first preference. I'm very 
suspicious of claims that an election outcome is "terrible" if it 
depends on some close-shave majority that failed. Certainly the 2000 
U.S Presidential election outcome was awful, from my partisan point 
of view, but I have to understand that about half the people wanted 
Bush. The real problem is electing officers by public elections, with 
long fixed terms!

(It's a continuation of the concept of a King, only restricted to 
four-year terms. No corporation would hire a President like that.)

Rather, have chosen representation (per Asset Voting, but a good 
proportional representation system wouldn't be terrible), and elect 
officers deliberatively, majority required (in the Assembly) to serve 
at the will of the people, as expressed through their 
representatives. Parliamentary system.