<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><FONT SIZE=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0">James Green-Armytage wrote:<BR>
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>My school, which is a pretty bizarre place, uses a pretty bizarre voting<BR>
>method for student government: Borda!<BR>
>Christ, I wondered, how the hell did they end up using Borda?<BR>
>What's even weirder is that they use Borda for multi-seat elections. Have<BR>
>you ever heard of that anywhere else?<BR>
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The following article by M Schulze ( never heard of him! ) on something called Quota Borda was published in Voting Matters 15.<BR>
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http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/publications/votingmatters/15P3.htm<BR>
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I'm not particularly interested (or knowledgeable) about Borda Counts but the following seems a particularly bad example (whether it works depends on the treatment/ allowability of truncated ballots):<BR>
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Year 1<BR>
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An election is held using Borda for a single seat. There are two candidates A and B. The voters give the following rankings:<BR>
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12 A<BR>
40 A>B<BR>
30 B>A<BR>
18 B<BR>
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A obtains 52 points (52x1 + 30x0), B obtains 48 points (48x1 + 40x0). A wins.<BR>
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Year 2<BR>
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This time there are 3 candidates A,B and C. The voters give identical rankings as in the previous election. Nobody expresses a preference for C making candidate C the most irrelevant of irrelevant alternatives.<BR>
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12 A<BR>
40 A>B<BR>
30 B>A<BR>
18 B<BR>
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This time the points are A= 52x2 + 30x1 and B= 48x2 + 40x1. A obtains 134 points and B wins with 136 points yet identical ballots have been cast in both elections.<BR>
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David Gamble<BR>
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