[EM] 3 or more choices - Condorcet

[Kristofer Munsterhjelm]

On 10/01/2012 08:50 PM, robert bristow-johnson wrote:

> the reason i like margins over winning votes is that the margin, in vote
> count, is the product of the margin as a percent (that would be a
> measure of the decisiveness of the electorate) times the total number of
> votes (which is a measure of how important the election is). so the
> margin in votes is the product of salience of the race times how
> decisive the decision is.

Similarly, one might say that wv is more about the degree of contention 
about something than the margin of victory. If most people have no 
opinion about A vs B, but 10 people vote A ahead of B, then that, 
according to wv, is less important than if, out of a million, ten more 
people vote A ahead of B than B ahead of A. In the latter case, the 
contest draws significant attention; in the former, it doesn't.

It's a bit like polling. Say you poll a thousand voters and 990 of them 
decline to answer. Then that ten answer in favor of A isn't going to 
carry much weight in favor of A; but if all thousand answer and 510 are 
in favor of A, that's quite a bit more important.