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To the person conducting the poll:<BR>
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Are you going to count the rankings to determine a winner? By what method?<BR>
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I suggest that you look for a Condorcet winner, an alternative that isn't pairwise-beaten, in any of its pairwise comparisons. And announce it to this mailing list.<BR>
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Also, I hope that you'll post, to this list, all the ballots, so that people can apply, to them, whatever rank-count method they want to. <BR>
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I claim that something is missing from the poll: On the ballot, you list Condorcet as a method. Condorcet isn't a particular method. Condorcet is a family of methods, in which we elect the CW if there is one; and, if there isn't one, we elect the candidate whose greatest pairwise defeat is the least.<BR>
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That's Condorcet's method. Of course it leaves open the question of how we measure the magnitude of a pairwise defeat.<BR>
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It's widely-agreed now that pairwise opposition, in a pairwise comparison, is the best way to measure a pairwise defeat.<BR>
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In other words, if X pairwise-beats Y, measure that defeat by the number of people who ranked X over Y. I've called that "winning-votes", and I and some others have been abbreviating it "wv".<BR>
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The wv method that does Condorcet's method most literally is Plain Condorcet. It's also the briefly and simply defined Condorcet version, and therefore is the one suitable for a public proposal.<BR>
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I defined PCin my previous post to this mailing list. But its definition is so brief that I'll state the definition here:<BR>
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Definition of Plain Condorcet (PC):<BR>
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If there is a candidate who doesn't have a pairwise defeat, s/he wins. If more than one candidate are without pairwise defeat, then they win.<BR>
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Otherwise, the winner is the candidate whose greatest pairwise defeat is the least (as measured by wv).<BR>
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[end of PC definition]<BR>
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So, I suggest that, instead of just listing Condorcet, it would be better to ask for some nominations of Condorcet versions. I claim that PC is the publicly proposable one, though Ranked-Pairs might be briefly-worded anough to be proposable too.<BR>
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So then, allow me to nominate two Condorcet versions, to replace "Condorcet" on the ballot:<BR>
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Plain Condorcet<BR>
Ranked-Pairs<BR>
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I'd also like to nominate a pairwise-count method that isn't a Condorcet version, but is just as good as PC. It may have been proposed by Forest, some years ago:<BR>
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MinMaxPairwise-Opposition (MMPO)<BR>
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Definition of MMPO:<BR>
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The first line is the same as for PC.<BR>
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Otherwise, the winner is the candidate whose greatest pairwise opposition is the least. <BR>
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A pairwise opposition, of X, is the number of people ranking some one particular candidate over X. So, X has a pairwise opposition with respect to each candidate. So we elect the candidate whose greatest pairwise opposition is the least.<BR>
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[end of MMPO definition]<BR>
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I'd previously thought that MMPO is briefer to define clearly than is PC, but now I'm not so sure.<BR>
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Anyway, so I nominate the following methods:<BR>
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PC<BR>
MMPO<BR>
Ranked-Pairs.<BR>
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If those methods were on the ballot (People should be invited to nominate methods, and all nominated methods should be on the ballot), I would rank as follows:<BR>
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1. PC<BR>
2. MMPO<BR>
3. Approval<BR>
4. Ranked-Pairs<BR>
5. Range-Voting (RV)<BR>
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I like the triangular shape of that ranking, which is entirely accidental.<BR>
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It could be argued that Approval is more winnable than the rank methods, because there are so many contentiously-divergent proposals for counting rankings. True. But sometimes peope object to Approval, perceiving it as a spoiled Plurality ballot. Though it can be explained that Approval is the 0,1 points system, and amounts to each person casting _one_ vote between some two sets of candidates, I feel that people might be more enthusiastic about the greater ambitiousness of a rank method. So maybe it's better to offer them a really good, but briefly-defined rank method, such as those that I've nominated.<BR>
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That's why I've ranked PC and MMPO over Approval. I've ranked Ranked-Pairs below Approval, because its definition might not be as clear to voters asked to sign an initiative petition or vote for enactment of a voting system.<BR>
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I've ranked Range-Voting last, among the candidate I rank, because, though it's better than the methods I didn't rank, it has a strategy problem that Approval doesn't have (when some people vote sincerely and other people strategize). Also, it's more difficult to implement than Approval.<BR>
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Now, the question is, to get a winner in the poll, which method do we use, for counting the ballots?<BR>
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I suggest Voter's-Choice:<BR>
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In addition to voting a ranking, invite each voter to designate a method for counting this election. For that purpose, of course it would be necessary for the ballot to allow for Approval balloting and RV balloting.<BR>
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Count the ballots by all of the methods that have been designated by someone.<BR>
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Give each method's winner a point-score equal to the number of people who have designated that method.<BR>
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The winner is the alternative that has the hightest point total.<BR>
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[end of definition of Voter's-Choice]<BR>
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I have to say that, if we're using RV to help find the winning method, then I will, of course, vote strategically in RV, giving maximum points to to all of the alternatives to which I've given an Approval vote.<BR>
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I don't know what points-range RV's nominator would like to specify. I kinow that RV advocates like fine resolution, and so let's say it's 0-100.<BR>
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So, then, here is there rest of my ballot (My ranking is written above in this posting):<BR>
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Approval:<BR>
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I give Approval votes to all of the candidates that I ranked, because I consider all of them adequate<BR>
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RV: I give maximum points to all of the candidates I've given Approval votes to.<BR>
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My method designation: I designate PC.<BR>
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I request that, after the results are posted here, we be allowed to add defensive truncation if we feel it's appopriate.<BR>
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Mike Ossipoff<BR>
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