[EM] Strong methods (was Re: 3 or more choices - Condorcet)

[Juho Laatu]

On 30.9.2012, at 16.06, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:

> On 09/30/2012 11:47 AM, Juho Laatu wrote:
>> On 30.9.2012, at 11.56, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:
>> 
>>> In practice, that means: is cloneproof, passes independence of as
>>> much as possible (independence of Smith-dominated alternatives,
>>> say), and is monotone.
>> 
>> These criteria could be one set of definitions of a good (sincere)
>> winner. I usually do not assume the first two ones since there may be
>> good (sincere) winners also outside those criteria. Monotonicity is
>> maybe more natural in the Condorcet category.
> 
> There might be, but then again, there may also be better outcomes when the method does not get confused by vote-splitting problems (e.g. the Korean election).

Bad clone related problems must be corrected, but different criteria may conflict, and one may get similar votes and matrices with or without real clones (= politically similar candidates). Therefore one may also meet the clone related criteria "well enough" in order to respect better some other requirements.

> In my opinion, even if that works, it won't have the desired effect. Australia shows this.

Maybe Austratlia shows that things could fail. But one could be also lucky, and Australia is a quite specific case. One must try and hope that things will work out. I believe most countries have some problems in their voting system, and usually they could be corrected, but they are not since there is not enough "political will".

> So the difference between the third and first category is, I think, that the third is about what's good for society in general, while the first is about what makes the voters (and candidates) accept the outcome. The more democracy is about having the losers accept that they've lost, the more important the first category becomes with respect to the third, for instance.

Maybe one more first category related explanation behind promoting IRV is that the serial elimination rule looks like a fair fight (where the weakest fighters are fairly kicked out of the fight) to many voters :-).

Juho