On Wed, Nov 29, 2000 at 01:44:33AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: > The reason I'm not accepting your interpretation, or considering it > at all reasonable, is that I'm still not seeing any basis for your > interpretation than that it comes up with the right answer.
I'd say "plausible answer" instead of right answer -- your interpretation does not come up with a plausible answer. I suppose a part of the problem also lies with the word "prefer". [Do transitive ranking characteristics indicate preference? The constitution doesn't explicitly say.] > Why not simply define the terms as they are used by the people who care > about these things, and then clearly express the procedure by which ties > should be dealt with, rather than defining them out of existance? Sounds good. > A.6(2) An option A is said to Dominate another option B, if > there are more votes which rank option A above option B > than there are votes which rank option B above option A. > > A.6(2a) The Smith Set of options in a vote is the smallest > non-empty set of options, each of which Dominates every > option not in the Smith Set. > > A.6(3) If there is only one option in the Smith Set, it is > the winner. > > This still leaves the more important problem of how to handle related > (opposing) options in a single vote unaddressed, however. I'm further > inclined to suspect that using Single Transferable Vote to choose the > winner from the Smith Set isn't ideal, but I don't know enough about > the alternatives to give a basis for that suspicion. Single Transferable Vote biases the selection in favor of first preferences at the expense of other preferences. Can you think of a better kind of criteria for making the selection? Or, can you construct an example where you feel that Single Transferable Vote seems unfair? Thanks, -- Raul
