Dear Jobst, when the beatpath method is being used then the beatpaths from the beatpath winner to the other candidates just form an arborescence with the beatpath winner as the root. It seems to me that "sequential dropping towards a spanning tree" (SDST) just finds this arborescence so that SDST is identical to the beatpath method.
Markus Schulze ---- Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
