<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><HTML><FONT SIZE=2 PTSIZE=10 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0">Mike wrote:<BR>
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>The CW is the social utility maximizer.<BR>
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I replied:<BR>
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Not always. Please justify this statement<BR>
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Mike replied in summary:<BR>
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With 1 issue dimension, the CW is the SU maximizer, if disutility is <BR>
measured by distance.<BR>
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Thankyou for this clarification. Issue space in most political systems is principally but not entirely one-dimensional (IMHO). There can be other types of disutility. For example in the recent election for Governor of California there was probably a great deal of disutility of knowledge. Due to the number of candidates most voters would probably been unable to tell you the names of more than a handful of candidates let alone what they all stood for.<BR>
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I wrote:<BR>
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A common way for somebody to<BR>
promote a 'pet' electoral method is to do the following:<BR>
<BR>
1/ Find a set of criteria that your system meets and state them.<BR>
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2/ Dismiss the criteria your method doesn't meet as irrelevant or even <BR>
better<BR>
just don't mention them<BR>
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Mike replied:<BR>
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During the time that EM has been in existence, we've had to answer this <BR>
abyssmal ignorance many times. There should be a FAQ with answers to all the <BR>
stupid questions like that. Or else David should check the archives better <BR>
before presuming to tell us how it is.<BR>
<BR>
David apparently is using his ESP here. Because, without ESP, how does <BR>
David know that someone started by choosing a method, and then searched <BR>
around for criteria that the method would meet.<BR>
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I reply:<BR>
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A way people often come to advocate or like a thing is like this. They look at something superfically think "this is a good idea" and agree with it. They then examine their decision in more detail and look for strong reasons to justify their choice. Sometimes people change their minds. Many people on the EM list originally thought IRV was a good idea but on later consideration switched to either supporting Approval or Condorcet. The initial opinion often comes before the detailed knowledge and may change as a result of gaining that knowledge.<BR>
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As regards the criteria to which to evaluate elections methods by at electionmethods.org we have the following:<BR>
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Monotonicity.<BR>
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Two Condorcet criteria, which surprise, surprise only Condorcet meets.<BR>
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Five strategy criteria (SFC, GSFC, SDSC, WDSC,FBC). One of which (FBC) Condorcet gets a question mark in the criteria compliance grid when it is stated in the text explaining the criterion that it does in fact fail (in rare situations).<BR>
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Also it is worth pointing out that only one effective strategy is needed to manipulate an election method if offensive burial is effective (as it is in WV Condorcet methods) second,third,fourth and fifth strategies are unnecessary. If you have one strategy that will throw the election you have need of no others.<BR>
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Finally we have the summability criterion which isn't a proper election method evaluation criterion at all. In the context of British General elections in which all the ballot boxes are transported to a single central location to be counted it looks pretty irrelevant. It is also worthy noting that Australia managed to conduct IRV elections in 1919 over some very large and sparsely inhabited constituencies when communication technology was considerably poorer than today. This is a criterion to do with different electoral administration arrangements in different countries, it is not a valid criteria to assess an election method against.<BR>
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Where is latter-no-harm, what about participation?<BR>
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A longer and more objective set of criteria used to be found at Blake Cretney's Condorcet.org ( which appears to have vanished).<BR>
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Mike Wrote:<BR>
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So perhaps you'd be so good as to give us an example of someone making their <BR>
criteria sound as good as possible, and really building them up, by saying <BR>
something that you can show to be unjustified.<BR>
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Or is it also bad to discuss a criterion's value even what one says is <BR>
justified?<BR>
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electionmethods.org provides an example of making your preferred method look as good as possible by failed to mention criteria it doesn't meet.<BR>
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I wrote:<BR>
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4/ Describe your selection of criteria as 'objective' ones that have been<BR>
selected by 'experts'<BR>
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Mike replied:<BR>
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Again, who has said that their preferred criteria are the objective ones <BR>
that have been selected by experts?<BR>
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I quote from electionmethods.org<BR>
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"The Election Methods Education and Research Group (EMERG) was founded by Russ Paielli and Mike Ossipoff. <B><U>Mike is an expert on election methods"<BR>
</B></U><BR>
I appears that you did!!!!!!!<BR>
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"EMERG is anon-partisan organisation. We believe that election methods should be evaluated <B><U>objectively</B></U> and mathematically, without regard to which political parties or ideologies might benefit."<BR>
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Though not objectively against a complete set of criteria it appears.<BR>
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"The choice of an election method should not be based on <B><U>subjective</B></U> notions"<BR>
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" It should be based, rather, on set of <B><U>strictly objective technical criteria</B></U>"<BR>
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Again a partial selection of criteria based on subjective notions about what you consider important is not in my opinion the selection of an election method based on strictly objective technical criteria.<BR>
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Finally Mike said:<BR>
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David, yoiur participation is making this mailing list have to act as an <BR>
elementary school. It would be better if you would start reading through the <BR>
list's archives, so that you wouldn't repeat elementary questions that have <BR>
been answered many times in the archives.<BR>
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I reply:<BR>
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As regards the kind of behaviour you might find in an elementary school remember the Floyd Algorithm.<BR>
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David Gamble<BR>
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