[EM] Symmetrical ICT program, with errors fixed

[Michael Ossipoff]

On Sat, Aug 25, 2012 at 4:18 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm
<km_elmet at lavabit.com> wrote:
> On 08/24/2012 04:56 PM, Michael Ossipoff wrote:
>>
>> I've printed the program out, and now I feel that I've probably found
>> and corrected all of its errors.
>
>
> Do you have any test vectors? Having tests would make it a lot easier to see
> whether you have actually corrected all the errors.

If you mean have I run the program, no I haven't. As I was saying, the
programming language that my computers have is the one that Microsoft
Office includes: VBA. I haven't yet found out how to make a VBA
program run.

So I haven't run the program. However, I've looked it over thoroughly,
and I'm confident that it now doesn't contain any errors. The fact
that I assign values to Top(k,i), and then never use it isn't
important.

If I were to distribute the program again, I'd remove the statements
about Top(k,i), but it doesn't matter. In fact, when I set Top(k,i) to
1, that emphasizes to the reader that I'm saying that the fact that
candidate i is ranked 1 on that ballot is noted and pointed out, and
will be used later (even if Top(k,i) won't be used).

> In the case of an election method, those test vectors would be elections
> where the method you're describing gives different results than as many
> other methods as possible. You'd have expected input (the ballots) and
> output (the winner or result ordering).
>
> Even better ones would also exercise edge case handling, like tiebreakers or
> different parts of the logic of the method.
>

I've described a scenario in which unimproved Condorcet fails FBC.

ICT and Symmetrical ICT never fail FBC.

I've described a scenario, and given a simple example, in which
unimproved Condorcet yields to defection, giving a Chicken Dilemma. It
was the standard Approval bad-example. Later, I gave several versions
of that example, with a wide range of different numbers.

ICT and Symmetrical ICT are defection-resistant. They avoid the
Chicken Dilemma, for the reason that I told to Jameson in my previous
posting here at EM.

I've listed a number of criteria, some of them of interest to many
here, that ICT and Symmetrical ICT meet. To those, I'll add Plurality
and Mono-Add-Top.

Chris Benham, though very demanding about criterion compliances, is
satisfied with the criterion compliances of ICT.

Computer-counted test scenarios can only confirm the
already-determined facts that I've stated.

Are you desperately reaching, in an effort to save unimproved
Condorcet from a comparison to ICT and Symmetrical ICT?

With its FBC failure, unimproved Condorcet fails its comparison to Approval.

You know, many voting-system-reform advocates are so used to
unimproved Condorcet as the popular accepted standard, that they've
come to live with and accept the flagrant perversity of FBC failure.

Mike Ossipoff