[EM] re Burlington

[Kristofer Munsterhjelm]

On 31/05/2019 08.39, Juho Laatu wrote:
>> It is easiest to understand this if all voters truncate,
>> effectively equal-ranking all but one bottom.
> 
> I guess Condorcet and most methods resemble plurality if voters so
> want. In most methods they can just bullet vote and leave the rest of
> the information out.
> 
>> In traditional voting, before modern elections, no decision was
>> made unless a majority supported it.
> 
> One could try to reach majority by making voting mandatory. Or if
> majority of those that vote is enough, then one could make filling
> the ballot paper appropriately mandatory. This covers both the first
> round and the runoff.
> 
> How abut trying to solve this problem in Condorcet by introducing a
> "status quo" candidate in the election? If that candidate wins, then
> the election is declared inconclusive. Or alternatively people have
> decided to keep the status quo. If needed, one could arrange a second
> round where people would know better which candidates to rank.
> 
> One interesting question here is, what is the default position of the
> "status quo" candidate. It could be shared last, as with other
> candidates, but one could also think it would be "lonely last" behind
> others, or first position.

Combining Condorcet with the sort of repeated runoff Abd suggests is
pretty easy. Just repeatedly eliminate everybody who falls outside of
the Smith set until only one candidate remains; he's the winner.

Preventing such a method from going on forever is a different matter,
though. Perhaps Heitzig's consensus system could be used to force random
ballot after a certain point, but it isn't clear to me just how you'd do
that.