[EM] Semantics of voting

[Colin Champion]

I started drafting a post on this subject, but it got longer and longer 
so I turned it into a web page: 
http://www.masterlyinactivity.com/condorcet/semantics.html
    Briefly, I argue that discussions of voting methods are only 
meaningful if a semantics can be attached to the correctness of 
electoral decisions; that models (such as jury and spatial models) can 
provide such a semantics, leading to a Bayesian interpretation of 
correctness; that the logical criteria stand or fall according to 
whether they can be validated under a suitable semantics; that some 
stand, some fall, and some are best seen as statistical approximations.
    The topics I discuss are ones I have not seen addressed elsewhere. I 
have no idea how new my ideas are, or whether, if I was better grounded 
in the field, I'd have been able to discuss the subject with greater wisdom.

CJC