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<p><br>
Why do we support the Condorcet criterion? For me there are three
reasons:<br>
<br>
(1) Failure to elect a voted CW can give the voters who voted the
CW over the actual winner<br>
a potentially very strong, difficult (if not impossible ) to
answer complaint.<br>
<br>
And those voters could be more than half the total.<br>
<br>
(2) Always electing a voted CW is (among methods that fail
Favorite Betrayal) is the best way to minimise<br>
Compromise incentive.<br>
<br>
(3) Limited to the information we can glean for pure ranked
ballots (especially if we decide to only refer<br>
to the pairwise matrix), the voted CW is the most likely utility
maximiser.<br>
<br>
If there is no voted CW , then the winner should come from the
Smith set. Condorcet is just the logical<br>
consequence of Smith and Clone Independence (specifically
Clone-Winner).<br>
<br>
Some methods are able to meet Condorcet but not Smith, but
hopefully they get something in return.<br>
(For example I think Min Max Margins gets Mono-add-Top and maybe
something else).<br>
<br>
So coming to the question of which individual member of the Smith
set should we elect, I don't see that a<br>
supposed, guessed-at "sincere CW" has an especially strong claim,
certainly nothing compared to an actual<br>
voted CW.<br>
<br>
Suppose sincere looks like:<br>
<br>
49 A>>>C>B<br>
48 B>>>C>A<br>
03 C>A>>>B<br>
<br>
Suppose that all voters get about the same utility from electing
their favourites. In that case A is the big utility<br>
maximiser.<br>
<br>
Now suppose that this is say the first post-FPP election, and the
voters are all exhorted to express their full<br>
rankings, no matter how weak or uncertain some of their
preferences may be, because we don't want anything <br>
that looks like the (shudder) "minority rule" we had under FPP.<br>
<br>
So they vote:<br>
<br>
49 A>C<br>
48 B>C<br>
03 C>A<br>
<br>
C is the voted CW. For some pro-Condorcet zealots, this is ideal.
No sincere preferences were reversed or <br>
"concealed", resulting in the election of the "sincere CW".<br>
<br>
(In passing I note that in most places if the non-Condorcet method
IRV/RCV were used, A would be uncontroversially<br>
elected probably without anyone even noticing that C is the CW.)<br>
<br>
Backing up a bit, suppose that instead of the voters being
exhorted to fully rank no-matter-what, they are given the<br>
message "this election is for a serious powerful office, so we
don't want anything like GIGO ("garbage in, garbage out")<br>
so if some of your preferences are weak or uncertain it is quite
ok to keep them to yourself via truncation or equal-ranking."<br>
<br>
So they vote:<br>
<br>
49 A<br>
48 B<br>
03 C>A<br>
<br>
Now the voted CW is A. Should anyone be seriously concerned
that, due to so many voters truncating, that some other<br>
candidate might actually be the "sincere CW"?<br>
<br>
For me, if voters have the freedom to fully rank but for whatever
reason choose to truncate (and/or equal-rank, assuming that<br>
is allowed) a lot of that is fine and the voting method should
prefer not to know about weak and uncertain preferences.<br>
<br>
The type of insincere voting that most concerns me is that which
produces outrageous failure of Later-no-Help, achieving by
order-reversal<br>
Burial what could not have been done by simple truncation.<br>
<br>
46 A<br>
44 B>C (sincere is B or B>A)<br>
10 C<br>
<br>
Electing B here is completely unacceptable. Regardless of whether
or not the B>C voters are sincere, there isn't any case that B
has a stronger<br>
claim than A.<br>
<br>
I don't like (but it can sometimes be justified) a larger faction
being stung by a successful truncation Defection strategy of a
smaller one, but apart<br>
from that I consider a lot of truncation to be normal, natural and
mostly desirable.<br>
<br>
More later.</p>
<p>Chris Benham<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite"><b
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">Forest
Simmons</b><span
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href="mailto:election-methods%40lists.electorama.com?Subject=Re%3A%20%5BEM%5D%20Benefit%20of%20a%20doubt%20runoff%20challenge&In-Reply-To=%3CCANUDvfru_xs%2BEE6kd7Xbb4p%2Bsh3Zijqy-yCmBwNPOdwLP1emgQ%40mail.gmail.com%3E"
title="[EM] Benefit of a doubt runoff challenge"
style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal;">forest.simmons21
at gmail.com</a><br
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<i
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Oct 29 21:30:58 PDT 2023</i>
<hr
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<pre
style="white-space: pre-wrap; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">Are the beatcycles that sometimes arise from expressed ballot preferences
... are these cycles more likely to arise from occasional inevitable
inconsistencies inherent in sincerely voted ballots? ... or from ballots
that reflect exaggerated preferences from attempts to improve the election
outcome over the one likely to result from honest, unexagerated ballots (?)
Should Condorcet methods be designed on the assumption that most ballot
cycles are sincere? .... or on the assumption that most are the result of
insincere ballots (?)
Some people think that the question is irrelevant ... that no matter the
answer, the best result will be obtained by assuming the sincerity of the
voted ballots. Others think healthy skepticism is necessary for optimal
results. What do you think?</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
</p>
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