Ok, not clear to me as an English-as-a-first-language speaker what the war
is about, but I have to object to Paul's words.
I __do__ get to express my n x (n-1) / 2 pairwise preferences (part or
all, as I as a voter choose). I just am forced to be consistent. If I
vote A>B and B>Z, then I have voted A>Z. If there is a C for which I have
given no explicit specification, then my above partial vote implies A>C,
B>C, and Z>C.
DWK
On Fri, 12 Aug 2005 20:35:05 -0500 Paul Kislanko wrote:
[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.
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED] people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek
Dave Ketchum 108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY 13827-1708 607-687-5026
Do to no one what you would not want done to you.
If you want peace, work for justice.
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