[EM] Why Not Condorcet?

[Kevin Venzke]

Dave, by the way,

--- En date de : Ven 14.5.10, Dave Ketchum <davek at clarityconnect.com> a écrit :
> We can dream of value in details as we sit here and
> debate.  Real-life voters need a way to express their
> most serious thoughts with reasonable effort:
>      To vote for more than Plurality's
> one - which even Approval offers.
>      To vary their approval according
> to their amount of liking - Condorcet and Score offer this.
>      To ask for only reasonable effort
> from the voters - see Condorcet.
>      Score demands more.  A voter
> thinking of A>B>C>D has no trouble offering min and
> max ratings to A and D.   With Score the
> voter is expected to diligently assign the available rating
> space among A>B, B>C, and C>D. 

I notice that all of your arguments have to do with the expressiveness
and simplicity of the ballot (except when you criticize IRV).

Some objections to Condorcet could be:
1. It is not expressive enough (compared to ratings)
2. Offensive strategy potential (absent in IRV, ratings, Bucklin)
3. Lacking guarantees (e.g. FBC or LNHarm)
4. Too complicated to explain, or propose (a conceptual hurdle with
Condorcet is that we leave the actual ballots for the pairwise matrix
right away, making it hard to understand how voting different ways
could change things)
5. Not thought to be politically acceptable (third place in FPs can win)

So, I wouldn't guess it's about expressiveness for most people.

Kevin Venzke