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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>The exercise to describe Condorcet in 12 words or less emphasizes
something I’ve been thinking of for a while. A “method” is a
collection of processes, and what the list came up with for a short description
of a Condorcet-based method makes very clear what the highest-level subdivision
of a an “election method” is:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>“</span></font><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>Tally
the round-robin pairings using the voters' orders of preference.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>You need a process to count
the votes, and you need a process to collect the input to the tally process. That’s
my definition of an EM, although I’d word it the other way around. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>Election Method: <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>n. A combination of a
procedure for collecting voter preferences and an algorithm for counting votes.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>From a purely analytical
standpoint, these can be dealt with separately and I believe it is much easier
to do so. I take no sides on the IRV vs Condorcet discussion, but observe that
you can do neither if the collection process only supports plurality. Any
improvement over plurality needs some of ranked-ballot input, and it seems to
me to be pointless to be debating the attributes of tallying algorithms if there’s
no input to talley except first-place votes.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Folks on this list tend
to concentrate on the properties of the algorithm for the “counting votes
algorithm”, and that is proper. But in order to do so there are unstated
assumptions regarding how the preferences were collected. Any Condorcet-based
method that only notes voter x preferred A to B and voter y preferred A to B
but doesn’t take into account that voter x preferred C to B while voter y
preferred B to C will necessarily be wrong in assuming that x’s and y’s
A>B votes are equal, and there’s no way to resolve that just from the
pairwise matrix. It just can’t show the difference between A>C>B
and A>B ballots. (Yes, voter x’s C>B vote will show up there, but B
still gets the same benefit from x and y, even though they didn’t intend
to equally support B).<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>From a terminology
standpoint, IRV has an instant advantage. Every voter I know understands
run-offs, and every voter I know would prefer to only vote once to express
their preferences. So IRV advocates need the voters to adopt ranked-ballots.
And of course, without ranked-ballots, you can’t have Condorcet-based
tallying procedures. Ranked ballots also support plurality and approval –based
methods. So pretty much everyone should work toward getting the collection procedure
to provide ranked-ballots as input to an arbitrary tally algorithm..<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>To re-open an old
discussion, I would argue strongly that an even more general ballot would be
appropriate for any Condorcet-based method. If there are 5 candidates in the
race I might select the A>B>C>D>E ballot, but if you take A, B, and
E out of the race, in the “round robin” I might rationally choose
D>C, because all of the issues that made C better than D were covered by A
and B. With them out of the picture, D may agree with me on more high-priority
issues than C. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>So I would argue quite
strongly that if you use a pairwise matrix as your tally mechanism, you allow
each voter to fill in their pair-wise preferences. If you don’t, the
system is not “transparent” and can’t be backed-up by voters’
ballots. That would be a lot harder to sell (but it’s trivial to
implement)<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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