[EM] Condorcet How? Abd, edit

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 08:37 PM 4/10/2010, Kevin Venzke wrote:
>--- En date de : Sam 10.4.10, Kevin Venzke <stepjak at yahoo.fr> a écrit :
> > I can't study the underlying utilities because I don't have
> > them. If I
> > did I could make them say anything I wanted. I would have
> > to come up
> > with a general rule anyway, or else give up and say all
> > methods are the
> > same.
>
>This should rather say, if I proposed utilities behind the scenario, I
>could make those utilities say anything I wanted.

I pointed out some extremes, which reveal as the 
ideal winner A, B, or C. In other words, you are 
apparently agreeing with me. However, I believe 
that I showed that a middle-of-the road 
assumption about underlying utilities, with 
stated assumptions that were not designed to make 
it turn out some particular way, A could indeed be the best winner.

(I did not set out to "prove" that A was the best 
winner, but rather just to attempt to infer 
utilities from the voting patterns, which didn't 
allow me to assume equal ranking except at the bottom).

The matter hinges on the A voters, who are, after 
all, almost a majority. Why did none of them rank 
B or C? The only reasonable assumption is that 
they have strong preference, and that's what ices 
it. This is the classic reason to violate the 
Condorcet or Majority criteria: a strong 
preference of a minority, particularly when the margin is thin.

If, in fact, B and C were true clones, with only 
minor preference between them, the assumption of 
a significant reduction of utility between them 
(which is the other factor that lowers the rating for B and C) would fail.

If the method allowed equal ranking, we'd see 
that in the votes, and B might win. The A votes 
would be the same, the B bullet voters would be 
the same, but the other B and C voters would 
equal rank B and C. Because of the B bullet 
voters, B would win by a small majority.

So my result for A could be an artifact of the 
voting system not allowing equal ranking. I used 
Range 2, which doesn't give a lot of room for 
"creative interpretation." That was much easier 
with Range 10, as I showed. With Range 2, there 
wasn't any other reasonable way to interpret the votes.