Russ brings up an important point. Again, it is a different thing for a candidate to withdraw befoe the ballots are cast than for a candidate to withdraw during counting of ranked ballots with all candidates ranked worse on any ballot moving up 1 spot.
This gets to the question of whether withdrawal is a part of the election method or just something outside of the method, and it is not always clear which we're talking about. ---- Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
