[EM] breakdown of Oakland mayor ballots

[Dave Ketchum]

This reads as a valuable demonstration of the value of Condorcet.

Here we have the pro- & anti- Perata halves of Oakland competing.  If  
they win, the anti-Perata half are also competing as to their minor  
differences.

This is only intelligent competition, NOT gaming.

In IRV, order of processing the same ballots would differ.  First  
decide which half of the top rank of the antis wins the right for  
total antis to compete with pro-Peratas.

Since they had more top ranks, they are likely stronger as total  
antis, but this is only odds, not certainty.

Agreed Perata would have won in Plurality BECAUSE voters cannot  
express their desires as completely there.

Dave Ketchum

On Nov 13, 2010, at 11:09 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:

> Sand W wrote:
>> Here are the results on an actual election: http://www.demochoice.org/dcresults.php?poll=OakMayor&type=table 
>>  <http://www.demochoice.org/dcresults.php?poll=OakMayor&type=table>
>> Perata (or maybe someone in his camp) accuses the other candidates  
>> of "gaming the system" by promoting each other as 2nd choices.
>> Some challengers tried to do that to IRV-leader Kriss Worthington  
>> too, but he won by a landslide.
>
> Unfortunately, there isn't enough data here to check who would won  
> under other methods, except for Plurality (where Don Perata would  
> have won). To find out the social order for a Condorcet method, one  
> would need the Condorcet matrix, and for most other methods, the raw  
> ballot data itself.
>
>> What you could really do if you are serious about promoting a  
>> different ranking system is to download  the "Demochoice Code" and  
>> rewrite it to use your preferred voting system, then put it online,  
>> because the code is public domain.
>
> A similar poll system, CIVS, uses Condorcet methods (one can choose  
> whether to use Schulze, Ranked Pairs/MAM, or "Smith,IRV"). The  
> source code is freely available at http://www.cs.cornell.edu/w8/ 
> ~andru/civs/changelog.html .