[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > --Actually, as a math PhD, what I understand is that the > > Condorcet criterion is NOT "already well-defined" > > This mystifies me. I've long understood the Condorcet criterion > to mean that if one candidate would defeat all others in one to one > contests, that candidate is the Condorcet winner. None of the > definitions you cited, despite their differences and imprecisions > in wording, is inconsistent with this understanding as far as I > can tell. I also don't see how a math PhD would have any reason > to interpret this differently, or that regarding the meaning of the > Condorcet criterion, being a math PhD is any justification for > claiming to see distinctions that others don't see, since the math > required is elementary arithmetic. It's kind of like saying that > someone who knows 50 languages can understand English > sentences better than English only speakers can. It's possible, > of course, but far from certain, and in any case it's not for > one multi-language speaker alone to decide, since other > multi-language speakers might disagree.
Even English-as-a-first-language speakers can grasp the problem. It is that the Condorcet *Criterion* is not well-defined for any method that does specifically call for pairwise rankings _by the voters_. In general, it is UN-defined and probably un-definable, since when an election is held there is only one way to vote, and I do NOT get to express my n x (n-1) / 2 pairwise preferences. ---- Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
