[EM] Jameson: Regarding preference criteria

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

Jameson:

I'd said:

Condorcet's Criterion:



If, for every y not x, no fewer people prefer x to y than y to x, and everyone votes sincerely,

then x should win.

You replied:

My point is that this is equivalent to: 
If
 the ballots are such that it could be the case that, for every y not x,
 no fewer people prefer x to y than y to x

, and everyone votes 
sincerely, then x should win.



By "equivalent" I mean that it is passed and failed 
by exactly the same methods.

[endquote]

Are you sure? Say, in Plurality, x gets more votes than anyone else. S/he wins as a result.

With those ballots, it could be that for every y not x, no fewer people preferred x to y than y to
x and everyone voted sincerely. Maybe people who voted for x didn't have any preferences other than for x over
everyone else. Therefore, their voting was sincere. The ballots are consistent with that.

So, what you said is not equivalent to the criterion that you quoted above.

You continued:

 But my statement is still better in that it
 prevents pedants from refusing to face cases where the 
criterion-required behavior may not actually be a good idea.

[endquote]

Sincere voting might not be a good idea for someone who could benefit from offensive order-reversal in a
Condorcet-Criterion-complying method. But that has no effect on the meaning or validity of the criterion. You haven't said
how a pedant could genuinely find fault with CC as I defined it above.

Sure, CC's value is lessened by its assumption that everyone votes sincerely. That's a reason why I prefer SFC to CC.

You continued:



This of course means that no limited-slot method can ever pass the Condorcet criterion except in a ballots-only sense.

[endquote]

Of course. And the ballots-only CC is passed by Plurality.

But, from what you've said, you do recognize preference-mentioning criteria, and their universal applicability,
and the limited meaningful applicability of votes-only criteria. So there's no significant disagreement.

Mike Ossipoff