[EM] Maximal Lotteries

Chris Benham cbenhamau at yahoo.com.au
Mon Jun 23 17:21:58 PDT 2025


I don't know what the "maximal lotteries method" is, and I guess that is 
true of other members of this list. But just going by its name I doubt 
that it would appeal to me.

Is the Condorcet "winner principle" something different from the 
Condorcet criterion?   Because that is a binary pass-or-fail thing.

Chris Benham


On 24/06/2025 7:44 am, Daniel Kirslis via Election-Methods wrote:
> For those of you who believe in the Condorcet winner criterion, is 
> there anyone who doesn't agree that the maximal lotteries method is 
> the theoretically soundest Condorcet method?
>
> Amongst the Condorcet methods, it seems to me that maximal lotteries 
> is clearly the best, at least in principle (that is to say, if we 
> ignore more practical concerns about ease of administration and 
> popular understanding). All deterministic Condorcet methods fail the 
> participation criterion. Therefore, a non-deterministic method is the 
> way to go, and the question becomes: "How shall we assign 
> probabilities amongst the Smith set?" I cannot imagine a more elegant 
> and fair-minded way of doing so than the maximal lotteries method.
>
> Is there anyone out there who understands the maximal lotteries method 
> but still thinks that there exists another method that better 
> satisfies the Condorcet winner principle? If so, why?
>
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