A lot of Condorcet election methods use randomness to elect a winner, but in a way that I think voters will find unsatisfactory. They simply produce a winner as part of a complex algorithm that uses randomness at various points. MAM is an example of such an algorithm. A voter might reasonably wonder whether the random number generator has been "fixed" to generate the desired result.
It seems to me that it would be more easy to justify the election method if it consisted of two phases: 1. Deterministically generate a separate probability in [0,1] for a win by each alternative (i.e., no randomness is used). 2. Randomly choose among the alternatives according to their respective probabilities. This can be done outside the electronic system to make it completely clear that the procedure is fair. You can imagine "lifting" existing algorithms to satisfy this description. For example, with MAM you could consider all possible permutations of the ballots. Of course, the problem is that this is very expensive. Thoughts? -- Andrew ---- Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
