Here is one very basic case where a group of voters has identical preferences but they benefit of casting three different kind of ballots.
In a Condorcet method there is an interest to create a loop to your opponents. In its simplest form there are four candidates. One of the candidates is our favourite and the others we want to beat. The others may or may not be from one party (this influences the probability of being able to generate a cycle at least if there are more than 4 candidates). Let's anyway assume that all the candidates will get about the same number of votes. Also in a zero info situation this may be a good voting strategy. The A supporters vote according to three patterns as follows. A>B>C>D A>C>D>B A>D>B>C If all candidates have same number of first place supporters (and other preferences are mixed) and B, C and D supporters don't try to create loops, A wins. Juho Laatu ___________________________________________________________ The all-new Yahoo! Mail goes wherever you go - free your email address from your Internet provider. http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html ---- election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info