[EM] Quick and Clean Burial Resistant Smith

[robert bristow-johnson]

> On 01/07/2022 1:05 AM Forest Simmons <forest.simmons21 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> Most designers of Condorcet methods asume that the gentlemanly thing to do is to give the votes a benefit of a doubt and assume that they must have voted sincerely

I just think that, without some other information to suggest otherwise, the marked ballot should be assumed to represent the voter's sincere preferences.

> but cycles are a result of errores of judgement.
> 

A preference cycle would need a very close 3-way race *and* and somewhat schizoid electorate.  "If I can't have my favorite Bernie Sanders, then I'm voting for T****."

Probably Schulze or RP is the best thing to do for those cases when there is no Condorcet winner.  But getting that into legislative language is difficult, which is why I have advocated for BTR-STV.

> Because of these assumptions they attempt to filter out the erroneous preferences statistically

I just think that the method tries to make the best thing out of a confusing situation that will rarely happen.

> .. the main heuristic is that larger majorities are less apt to hold erroneous opinions than smaller ones ... hence cycles are broken by annulling the defeats with the smallest majorities.
> 

That's one way to do it.

> I used to think that way, too.
> 
> But seasoned election observers are of the opinion that the vast majority (more than 90 percent) of public elections for political office have a sincere Condorcet candidate, and that when there is a defeat cycle, it is more likely to be the result of intentional subversion of the Condorcet candidate than of erroneous voter judgment.
> 

The thing is more like 99.5% have Condorcet winner.  Right now, at least with the 440 RCV elections that FairVote says they analyzed, that all had Condorcet winners and all but one succeeded at electing the Condorcet winner.

I just sorta wanna get any Condorcet method.  The simpler language the better.  I think cycles will be rare.  If we elect the plurality winner in case of a cycle, that might be an indication of preference.  It's not Schulze.  It might not elect the bestest candidate that disincentivizes certain tactical voting.  But if simple language get a Condorcet method understood, it has a better chance of maybe someday getting legislated.

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r b-j . _ . _ . _ . _ rbj at audioimagination.com

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."

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