[EM] Rarity, FBC, Condorcet, comparison of criteria

[Richard Fobes]

On 5/7/2012 11:10 AM, Michael Ossipoff wrote:
> Yeah? How about this, then?:
>
> 27: A>B (they prefer A to B, and B to C)
> 24: B>A
> 49: C  (indifferent between everyone other than C)

Cases that require carefully chosen numbers, as this example does, 
become less important than patterns that occur over many elections.

You pointing out a weakness that can only occur in rare cases is quite 
different than, say, what happened in Burlington and Aspen where IRV 
declared a non-Condorcet winner after only one (or perhaps just a few?) 
elections.

Mike, if you really want to elevate FBC above the Condorcet criterion, I 
suggest that you start by noticing that it is the only voting criterion 
in the Wikipedia comparison table that does not link to a Wikipedia 
article about the criterion (and such a link is also missing from the 
text section just above the table).  I'll let other election-method 
experts debate with you on Wikipedia if you choose to add a Wikipedia 
article about FBC.

As for comparing FBC to Condorcet, have you not noticed that other 
debates about which criteria is more important than another criteria 
typically end up being inconclusive because mathematics supports the 
recognition that no single voting method is objectively "best"?

As I've said on this forum before, some studies should be done to 
compare _how_ _often_ each method fails each criterion.  Those numbers 
would be quite useful for comparing criteria in terms of importance.  In 
the meantime, just a checkbox with a "yes" or "no" leaves us partially 
blind.

(I changed the subject line because the subject line is not intended to 
be used to specify who you are writing to.  The subject line should 
indicate the topic.)

Richard Fobes