On Wed, Dec 06, 2000 at 09:08:33AM -0600, Norman Petry wrote: > The only ambiguity I see with the current constitution is that it cannot > cope with circular ties. Fortunately, these are rare, so this has never > been an issue for Debian (all previous elections have had a Condorcet > winner). One thing I do as part of my involvement in the EM list is to > carry out simulation studies of voting methods, and these suggest that > circular ties will occur naturally about 5% of the time, so this isn't that > big an issue. It's a minor bug which could result in some embarrassment and > confusion at some point, but it is not likely to affect anything in the > short run.
Interesting. > A minimal fix for this problem is to replace A.6.3 with A.6.4, and then > create a new A.6.4 which uses the Smith set to restrict the group of > potential winners that are then subjected to the STV count rule (or for > something even simpler, just leave it out entirely, in which case *all* the > candidates would be selected from using STV, if there is no Condorcet > winner). This doesn't address the issue of mixing options with different > supermajority requirements, but I think Debian's existing rules can > unambiguously cope with that -- they're sub-optimal, but serviceable. I > don't see anything wrong with the quota requirements as they're written. > > [...] Wouldn't this change the results in some cases which are currently unambigous? > >> 3) It is not necessary to define 'cumulatively preferred' unless it is > >> used as part of a voting method definition, and I'd need to see the > >> whole method in order to judge the merits of your system. > > > >As I indicated above, I'm considering the implications of explicitly > >specifying that an option "Dominates" another only where the first > >option is transitively preferred to the second, but the second is not > >transitively preferred to the first. > > > >[I'm aware that there are many alternate voting methods. But, I think > >we need to at least consider options based on the "don't fix what > >ain't broke" approach. If we completely rewrite large sections of the > >constitution we may create future problems which we won't notice for a > >year or two.] > > I disagree with this approach. If you redefine the underlying concepts > used in pairwise voting, you may be able to make minimal wording > changes yet create profound changes in voting results. On the other > hand, major changes in wording can have little or no effect on > outcomes. Can you show me an example where the current constitution is unambiguous, and my change would alter the outcome (or make the outcome ambiguous)? [Or, can you show me an example where my change wouldn't fix the ambiguity?] I don't want to shy away from what I see as the proper solution, to avoid a problem which doesn't exist. Thanks, -- Raul
