[EM] rbj's query re:DLW's assertion of Condorcet winners as ad hoc-ish due to political candidates being fuzzy options for voters.

[David L Wetzell]

>
>
> From: robert bristow-johnson <rbj at audioimagination.com>
> To: election-methods at lists.electorama.com
> Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2011 11:30:22 -0400
> Subject: Re: [EM] hello from DLW of "A New Kind of Party":long time
> electoral reform enthusiast/iconoclast-wannabe...
> On 10/30/11 9:33 PM, David L Wetzell wrote:
>
>> So there's no cardinal or ordinal utility for any candidate out there and
>> all effective rankings of candidates used to determine the Condorcet
>> Candidate are ad hoc.
>>
>
> what do you mean by that?  do you mean that any of the Condorcet-compliant
> methods are ad hoc?
>

If my valuations of n candidates (or a subset therein) are fuzzy then my
rankings of them may be ad hoc and the odds are somebody's going to be
flipping a coin(possibly more than once) at some point.  Thus, there's less
of a benefit from being Condorcet-compliant than might seem to be the case
in theory.  As such, arguments that dismiss IRV or IRV3 for failing to
always be Condorcet-compliant are not slam dunks.
dlw

>
> --
>
> r b-j                  rbj at audioimagination.com
>
> "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
>
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