One thing I forgot to mention. In Smith/Approval (Approval as a Condorcet completion method) there are various options. One of these is to use (lack of) Approval to eliminate candidates one by one until the Smith Set reduces to one candidate. Another simpler method is to just take the most approved member of the original Smith Set as the winner. There are other variations, too. Forest ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2001 15:21:52 -0700 (PDT) From: Forest Simmons <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Mixed Condorcet-Plurality Resent-Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2001 15:22:48 -0700 Resent-From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Wed, 11 Apr 2001, Martin Harper wrote: [snipped] > > I would call your suggestion "Smith//Plurality" - the Smith Set is the smallest > possible set of candidates such that all members of the Smith Set pairwise beat > all non-members. > > I *think* it's monotonic, but I'm not sure: Plurality itself is monotonic, as is > Smith, so it ought to be. On the other hand, it definately isn't immune to > clones, so there may be issues of vote-splitting. Whether these problems > manifest themselves often enough to be a concern is less certain. If simplicity > and transparency is important, then I might prefer this method over the more > complex Condorcet variants. > Forest says ... It seems to me that plurality completion encourages insincere voting of one's compromise above one's favorite in a close race because the first place counts so much in the cycle breaking method, i.e. if the cycle breaking method suffers from "spoilage" then so does the method-cum-cycle-breaker. That's why I advocate "Smith/Approval" which simply requires an extra mark to indicate the Approval cutoff on each ballot. When the mark is omitted, then the truncation point can be taken as the cutoff. Remember that Nader's supposed spoilage of Gore's chances is the biggest impetus to IRV support among North American progressives. How ironic! Because I put a high premium on the Favorite Betrayal Criterion my main interests are in studying and promoting Approval and its possible generalizations or applications. One neglected application is as a completion method for Condorcet. Forest
