[EM] An interesting real election

[Aaron Armitage]

--- On Mon, 1/31/11, Kevin Venzke <stepjak at yahoo.fr> wrote:

> From: Kevin Venzke <stepjak at yahoo.fr>
> Subject: Re: [EM] An interesting real election
> To: election-methods at electorama.com
> Date: Monday, January 31, 2011, 12:04 AM
> Hi Aaron,
> 
> --- En date de : Dim 30.1.11, Aaron Armitage <eutychus_slept at yahoo.com>
> a écrit :
> >1 has a path to 6 at least as strong as 6's path to 1,
> namely 1>3>6, at 
> >15-11 and 14-11. It
> >seems a little odd, to me at least, that 6's path to 1
> should benefit 2 
> >but not 6 itself.
> 
> When you say "benefit" do you mean "elect" or something
> more broad? It
> seems to me election is the only meaningful benefit but of
> course only
> one candidate can receive it.
> 

In this context I mean benefit in the pairwise comparison. So in this
case, using Schulze, 2 receives a pairwise benefit against 1 from the
direct 6 vs. 1 comparison, but 6 itself (himself, herself...) does not.
Actually winning office is the main reason why a candidate would care
about his pairwise comparisons, but not the only one -- doing well gives
him a stronger platform for future elections, makes him more attractive to
donors, makes him more likely to be taken seriously, and so on.

> >Starting from the top seems the only way of ensuring
> that the path that 
> >orders the two
> >candidates relative to each other is the one which
> actually contributes 
> >to the final outcome.
> 
> I don't understand this. Are you saying the Schulze outcome
> in this
> election is an example where these two things differed?
> 

Well, yes. 6>1 is part of 2's successful path to 1, even though 1 is
placed over 6 by the 1>3>6 path.

> It's true that 1's path to 6 is better than the reverse,
> but the only
> method that will never elect the loser of such a comparison
> is Schulze.
> 
> Kevin
> 

Maybe I'm missing something. I ranked pairs, aren't the strongest paths
locked in before the weaker ones are considered? That is, the weakest link
of the weaker path is only considered after all the links of the better
path are locked in.

> 
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