I came up with my new favorite example to demonstrate how Condorcet's method works, which I documented on Wikipedia. The link is here:
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet%27s_method
The idea is to simulate an election for the capital of the state of Tennessee, with the four candidates being Memphis, Nashville, Chattanooga, and Knoxville. The distribution and geography of the state lend itself well to this comparison, since it's not too far removed from a single-dimensional "political spectrum" that people are used to thinking of, but it hints at the multidimensional facet, and is reasonably concrete. At least, it's concrete if you have a map in front of you or if you really know Tennessee geography...as for me, I needed a map (though as a bonus, I know more about Tennessee geography than I knew 24hrs ago).
Rob
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