David's method gives me a similar, simpler idea that would seem to be an improvement over IRV. The method would be:
1. The voters rank the candidates they would be willing to support, and also place an approval cutoff. (Alternatively, all candidates ranked non-last could be considered "approved.") 2. While there is no (voted) majority favorite, eliminate the Approval loser. 3. Elect the voted majority favorite. Actually, I think this is Chris Benham's idea, suggested as a solution to the strong FBC problem. At the time I thought it would always elect the Approval winner, but that's clearly wrong. An example, where all ranked candidates are considered approved: 20: C>A 35: A>B 45: B B is the Approval winner, but A is a majority favorite once C is eliminated. A problem with this method, as well as with IRV and David's method (I am pretty sure), is the incentive to up-rank compromises in attempt to achieve a majority earlier. The method wouldn't necessarily elect a CW, but I suspect it would fail to do so for the same reasons Approval may: In the "weak centrist" scenario, for instance, a major faction can't support the centrist and also hope to elect their favorite, so the centrist's value has to be considered. (Condorcet in comparison allows the faction to do both.) One thing I like about this IRV variant is that it seems to better represent an actual decision-making process that might occur if all the voters were able to get together, discuss, and shift support dynamically. It seems a reasonable principle that, if no option has a majority, the option with the least enthusiasm (approval) is withdrawn. This leads me to the other topic. The most "common" Condorcet-Approval hybrid, it seems to me, is to elect the Approval winner among the Smith set members. I've read that there is concern about strategy incentives under those rules. I wonder if that concern could be lessened if the rule were instead: While there is no CW, Eliminate the Approval loser. This will always elect a Smith set member, because it's not possible to eliminate all Smith set members without creating a CW. This seems better, to me, than Smith//Approval, because it still uses the pairwise contests to make a decision. The Approval winner won't necessarily win. Any thoughts...? Kevin Venzke [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? -- Une adresse @yahoo.fr gratuite et en fran�ais ! Yahoo! Mail : http://fr.mail.yahoo.com ---- Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
