[EM] Arrow's Theorem

Kristofer Munsterhjelm km_elmet at lavabit.com
Fri May 6 00:05:21 PDT 2011


robert bristow-johnson wrote:

> likewise, when the IRV method chooses the same candidate as Condorcet 
> would (which is what would happen if the Condorcet winner makes it into 
> the IRV final round), we can say "Hey, IRV did pretty good!"  but if IRV 
> fails to elect the Condorcet winner, it doesn't make IRV appear more 
> legitimate to the electorate.
> 
> so, in both cases; Electoral College and IRV, i would ask "Why bother?"  
> if the measure of goodness of the election result is how congruent it is 
> with the Popular vote or Condorcet, respectively, why not just use the 
> Popular vote and Condorcet instead of something that tries to 
> approximate either?

Well, Fairvote would like to make us believe that some cases, if the 
Condorcet winner had won, we'd all be saying "but wait! He didn't have 
enough core support! Boo!".

(Presumably we should also be saying, if the Plurality winner won, "but 
wait! Lots of people second-ranked someone else! Boo!". One might wonder 
how much "core support" is enough.)



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