[EM] smith/schwartz/landau

[Curt]

> On Mar 28, 2018, at 1:26 AM, Juho Laatu <juho.laatu at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> If you observe the strength of comparisons from utility point of view, that could make those 66:33 preferences either stronger or weaker. But my argumentation (in favour of considering the non Smith Set members as potential winners) is based on plurality only, not on utilities.

I view a 66:33 Smith Cycle as having *no* additional useful information over a 60:40 Smith Cycle or a 50:49 Smith Cycle. The only way to see a 66:33 Smith Cycle as being “stronger” than the other cycles is to imagine that it corresponds to a strength of preference or depth of division in the electorate, when there is no data to support that.

> (In some sense pure ordinal methods make the one-man-one-vote assumption and behave as if utilities correspond directly to the plurality difference (of some other function of the pluralities).)


I would argue that they actually don’t behave that way, and should not be looked at this way. It assumes probability, from an imagined distribution that is not that predictable in reality. Electorate preference is not evenly distributed. It clusters all over the place in ways that are not predictable. There is nothing about a 66:33 cycle that makes “d” a more appropriate winner than a 60:40 or 50:49 cycle. To argue otherwise is to imagine a correspondence with utility.

Number of voters in a margin is meaningless to Condorcet methods. All that matters is whether a majority is reached. Beyond that, it is impossible to characterize that majority.

Incidentally, this does point to what I believe *is* a major downside of a Condorcet method - it’s by definition entirely unsuitable for figuring proportional representation, because that again would imbuing vote margins with utility concepts.


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