Yes, judging by the archives, Rob started EM in February '96. But a posting from Steve in EM's 1st month, February '96, shows that the Single-Winner Committee had been operating for some time before that.
I include, in this posting, below, a copy of a May '96 posting of mine to EM. But you needn't depend on my re-posting those postings, links being posted to them. Just check out the earliest EM archives for yourself.
Before I get to the posting, though, I point out that, even if we only have the EM archives, and not those of the Single-Winner Committee, those archives show that I was advocating wv (sometimes referred to there as "votes-for", and described as measuring defeat strength by the voted support for the defeat), well before my first mention of GMC.
And they show that I was advocating wv by its general advantages and justifications, the fact that it records and counts the number of people who voted against a candidate, which reassures the lesser-of-2-evils voter who needs to register his vote against someone so badly that he'll give up voting for those he really likes. I told how ww, for that reason, makes it easier to ensure that some gsreater-evil will lose, just by voting someone else over him, because those votes are kept and not deleted by subtraction, as happens in Margins. I told how that's why wv honors majority rule and Margins doesn't.
Thsoe general arguments for wv are in those eary EM archives.
And they're found on days that were long before my first mention of GMC.
Buit, though it isn't true, what if during the same days when I was making those general wv advocacy arguments, I'd also been saying "A good thing about wv is that it makes PC meet GMC."
Would that somehow negate the general arguments? No, it would merely mean that I was stating an additional thing I liked about wv.
I wanted to mention that, but I re-emphasize that the archives show that I was stating those general arguments for wv long before I mentioned GMC. In fact, those general wv advocacy arguments can be found in the 2nd month of the EM archives, March '96.
If we had the archives of the Single-Winner Committee, postings much earlier than those could be found.
I mention all this and re-post the May '96 posting below, in reply to questions about early advocacy of wv.
Here's the May 10th, 1996 posting. Part of it is from me, and part of it is someone whom I was quoting and replying to:
Condorcet proposed scoring the candidates according to their worst defeat. He wasn't specific about how to measure that defeat, probably since no one was considering the possibility of short rankings. My proposal is a version of Condorcet's method, as proposed by Condorcet. My proposal is consistent with what Condorcet proposed. One of the possibilities implied by his proposal. I've posted often here about why votes-against is the desirable way to measure defeats.
[...meaning that that wv advocacy began well before May '96]
[Someone had said]:
I find this scheme artificial. While circular
Voting systems are proposed by people, not picked from trees.
[I reply below. For the rest of this posting, I trust that it will be clear which part is from me and which part is from the person to whom I was replying]
Is majority rule artificial too? Most would agree that it's natural. Condorcet's method carries out majority rule where your random method & your votes-for method wouldn't. When I say "Condorcet's method", I'm referring to my votes-against version of it.
[I mention Condorcet a few times below, and, from the above-quoted sentence, those references to "Condorcet" or "Condorcet's method" refer to wv Condorcet, in this posting and others, including the March posting that I'm going to re-post]
In Steve's many-candidate example, there could be a majority ranking Clinton over Dole, and Condorcet's method would count that. A method counting votes-for would ignore it, and would work more like MPV, making anti-Dole votes sorry they didn't vote Clinton in 1st place.
Look, in the U.S., this November, millions of progressives are going to cast a vote-against, for which they're quite willing to give up the opportunity to cast a vote for their favorite. Condorcet's method lets them cast that reliably-counted vote-against, while still voting their favorite in 1st place, and while still ranking Clinton as low as they want to--provided that they merely rank him over the candidate they want to defeat.
Votes-against are artificial? Tell that to the Democrat-voting progressives--but they'll do it anyway.
ties are logically possible, I am not sure that they are probable nor do I know what they would mean. I am inclined
I've repeatedly showed you that the common practice of truncation will cause circular ties even when there's a candidate who, when compared separately to each one of lthe others, is preferred to him by more voters than vice-versa. Trunction can take victory away from Condorcet winners, in your methods, but not in Condorcet's method.
to think that they would mean that the voters have no great preference between the candidates involved in the tie. If my assumption is correct, then the winner may more simply and reasonably be decided by drawing lots.
Yes, if you don't value majority rule, and if you don't care to get rid of the lesser-of-2-evils problem.
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