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I don't oppose MJ. I like Approval, and MJ is Approval. <br><br>True, it's an unnecessarily complicated, elaborate and expensive Approval, but it's still Approval.<br><br>In Ruderman's poll, I voted:<br><br>1. Approval<br>2. RV<br>3: MJ<br><br>I would have put the Approval cutoff just below MJ, but I didn't know that it was an Approval cutoff.<br><br>I don't oppose ICT. I consider it one of the better full-ranking methods for public elections. ...along with<br>AOCBucklin and ACBucklin. And maybe IC(wv-conditional) or IC-ACBucklin. I don't claim to know which of all those<br>is better.<br><br>There are certain strategy problems shared by the pairwise-count methods. Condorcet(wv) avoids &/or minimizes some of<br>them, but ICT avoids Condorcet(wv)'s worst problems: FBC-failure and co-operation/defection dilemma.<br><br>The pairwise-count problems that ICW doesn't get rid of don't really seem problematic to me. Problems sure, but<br>secondary problems. Compare them to the kind of problems Plurality and IRV and most rank methods have.<br><br>It's my opinion that the best full-ranking method is AOCBucklin. But that's really a matter of opiniion.<br><br>The optional conditionality gives the voter more to do other than just sincerely rank. But that's the trade-off, for what<br>I consider a more deluxe method. ICT is effectively automatically conditional, like ACBucklin. For the voter, more to do means<br>more choices to make, more work in voting; but it also means more freedom, expressiveness and control of what one's ballot<br>will do.<br><br>It's difficult to compare a pairwise-count method to an Approval-based method, because they're so different. I feel that the<br>Approval-based methods are closer to the rightness of Approval. Approval's simplicity and rightness are there in stepwise<br>Approval too (that's ABucklin). In comparison, the pairwise-count methods are more like a machine that does certain things<br>convincingly, but also has unintended consequences, as do many machines. ...not that all methods don't have unintended<br>consequences too, but that seems less for the more natural Approval-based methods.<br><br>The pairwise-count methods are the ones for reliably choosing the CW. But we all know that Condorcet's Criterion is<br>incompatible with FBC anyway.<br><br>ICT does something that's more similar to looking for a CW, but when we abandon Condorcet's Criterion, it isn't obvious<br>what else is most important.<br><br>One difference between ICT and ACBucklin is that Bucklin starts at the top and looks for a majority that can be assembled<br>from the top of people's rankings. In a way, doesn't that make more sense? Say one ballot has y in 100th place, and x<br>in 99th place. Another ballot has y in 1st place and x in 2nd place. Another has x in 1st place, and y in 4th place.<br><br>Pairwise-count counts those ballots' treatment of x & y equal. But are they? Might it not make more sense, the way ABucklin<br>starts from the top down, in its search for a majority?<br><br>ACBucklin, like ABucklin and AOCBucklin meets the Mutual-Majority-Criterion. <br><br>(Though IRV meets MMC, and doesn't have the co-operation/defection problem, it has (as you know) a particularly bad and<br>frequent FBC failure).<br><br>In optionally conditional Approval (AOC), you should give a conditional vote to a candidate if you want to help hir, for protection<br>against someone worse, but you don't want your help to be usable against candidates whom you like more. S/he's better than<br>the worse ones, but s/he's still a rival to the better candidates. Likewise in AOCBucklin.<br><br>That's the obvious first improvement on Approval. Sure, MTA, MCA & ABucklin improve on Approval too, slightly, by adding<br>more levels of majority-rule protection. But that's insignificant in comparison to getting rid of the co-operation/defection<br>problem. <br><br>So: Obvious first Approval improvement: AOC. After that, maybe MTAOC, MCAOC or AOCBucklin.<br><br>And, even if ICT is better than ACBucklin, a problem of ICT is: How do you get there from here? If you propose ICT, people<br>can ask, "But, with so many full-ranking methods, and with so many methods, why choose that one particular one?"<br><br>That question isn't a problem for Approval and its natural and obvious improvements.<br><br>One advantage of the optional conditionality of AOC is that an option is much more difficult to criticize than a non-optional<br>change or feature.<br><br>Returning to the comparison of ICT and ACBucklin, if you truncate in ICT, you still can benefit from help given by the<br>supporters of the candidate you truncated from your ranking. That isn't so in ACBucklin.<br><br>I wanted to post these comparison of these methods.<br><br>Mike Ossipoff<br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br>A fair comparison would be one between ACBucklin and ICT, because they're both automatically conditional. In the Approval<br>bad-example, it isn't enough for the A voters to co-operate. C will win unless the B voters co-operate too. The efficacy of the A voters'<br>support for B is conditional upon co-operation by the B voters.<br><br>With the deluxe AOCBucklin, the A voters have a choice between giving to B a conditional vote or an unconditional vote.<br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br> </div></body>
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