[EM] Defeat strength, Winning Votes vs. Margins, what to do with equally-ranks on ballot?

[robert bristow-johnson]

I've emailed that McKinnon guy soon after I discovered his page and I downloaded his pdf doc.  Got no response.So, on an RCV ballot, every candidate unmarked is tied for last place on that ballot.If tied *marked* candidates get their tied votes counted as votes for both candidates, then marking all these unliked candidates the same lowest ranking level would count differently than if the voter instead left these unliked candidates unmarked.If the RP (or Schulze) election went into a cycle that involved any of these candidates, and if the defeat strength was WV, not Margins, the candidates tied at the bottom would get votes if they were ranked and tied that they would not get if they were unranked and tied, correct?  And it would make no difference if it were Margins.I am still mulling over if that differentiation of ranked-and-tied to unranked-and-tied is something I would want or not.  I know it makes no difference if there is no cycle or even if there was a cycle but only Margins is used as the measure of defeat strength.--r b-j                     rbj at audioimagination.com"Imagination is more important than knowledge."

-------- Original message --------
From: Carl Schroedl <carlschroedl at gmail.com> 
Date: 5/25/2019  12:20  (GMT-08:00) 
To: rbj at audioimagination.com 
Cc: EM <election-methods at lists.electorama.com> 
Subject: Re: [EM] Defeat strength, Winning Votes vs. Margins, what to do with equally-ranks on ballot? 

Good question Robert!Does anyone know of a publication that addresses this topic? On the site that Canadian MP Ron McKinnon published to promote Ranked Pairs, it appears the approach is to add voters' indifferent votes to both candidates when computing winning votes.The “majority vote” is the number of votes in which the given majority candidate is more-preferred-than the given minority candidate plus the no-preference value. The “minority vote” is the number of votes in which the minority-candidate is more-preferred-than the given majority candidate plus the no-preference value.https://condorcet.ca/see-how-it-works/how-it-works/(Click "Ranking the Pairs", then click "Notes")While I have ideas about the reasoning for the approach, I don't know for certain. I'll email him about it. MP's tend to be busy, so it may take a while to get a response. To speed things up, does anyone have a connection to Mr. McKinnon or the expert(s) he worked with? I would be interested in learning more about their reasoning for this approach.All the best,CarlOn Mon, May 20, 2019, 4:06 PM robert bristow-johnson <rbj at audioimagination.com> wrote: So this would be about Tideman Ranked-Pairs, or Schulze, or some other Condorcet-compliant method.It doesn't make much difference if the measure of Defeat Strength is Margins (supporting votes minus opposing votes), but what if Winning Votes is the measure of Defeat Strength
in either RP or Schulze?  How should a pair of candidates that are equally-ranked on a ballot be counted?  Do you count it (as a winning vote) for *both* candidates?  For neither candidate?  (I dislike the idea of a half-vote for both candidates.  And I hate the idea of not
allowing equal-ranking in a Condorcet RCV election.)What is the right way to do this?  It seems the most consistent might be to count an equally-ranked votes for **neither** candidate, since we consider unranked candidates as tied for last place on the ballot, and we would count those as
votes.But what do you guys think?  If we allow for equal-ranking in a Condorcet-compliant RCV, how do we deal with it in terms of vote totals?--

r b-j                         rbj at audioimagination.com

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
    ----
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list info
On Mon, May 20, 2019, 4:06 PM robert bristow-johnson <rbj at audioimagination.com> wrote: So this would be about Tideman Ranked-Pairs, or Schulze, or some other Condorcet-compliant method.It doesn't make much difference if the measure of Defeat Strength is Margins (supporting votes minus opposing votes), but what if Winning Votes is the measure of Defeat Strength
in either RP or Schulze?  How should a pair of candidates that are equally-ranked on a ballot be counted?  Do you count it (as a winning vote) for *both* candidates?  For neither candidate?  (I dislike the idea of a half-vote for both candidates.  And I hate the idea of not
allowing equal-ranking in a Condorcet RCV election.)What is the right way to do this?  It seems the most consistent might be to count an equally-ranked votes for **neither** candidate, since we consider unranked candidates as tied for last place on the ballot, and we would count those as
votes.But what do you guys think?  If we allow for equal-ranking in a Condorcet-compliant RCV, how do we deal with it in terms of vote totals?--

r b-j                         rbj at audioimagination.com

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
    ----
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list info


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