My way of avoiding the problem of a method that requires a margin of victory is to say: "A voter, John, votes Smith over Jones if, by adding to the election a group of voters who vote the same as John, we can make it so that..." I believe that a definition should be written for where it's used. For instance, the EM version of my definitions should be the versions that are most accepted on EM, provided that their results are acceptable to me also. A definition would be of little use if it weren't well-accepted where it's used. And so I adopt, for the EM version of voting Smith over Jones, the definition that speaks of counting only the ballots of John and the voters who vote the same as he does. But I'd like to mention this: My initial definition of voting Smith over Jones had the problem that it's possible to devise a method with which it's possible for a voter to vote Smith over Jones and Jones over Smith. But I claim that with that method, it isn't unreasonable to say that that voter is voting Smith over Jones & Jones over Smith. So I claim that that's a fair thing to say about that method, rather than an incorrect consequence of the definition. Now maybe it's much more likely that that voter would be helping Jones against Smith than vice-versa, so it could be said that he's voting Jones over Smith more than he's voting Smith over Jones. But he's still voting each of them over the other. I mean, it's reasonable to say that, in addition to being what my definition says. So, for the public-proposal-debate version of that definition, I keep the wording that _doesn't_ require that it _not_ be possible to contrive a configuration of the other voters such that if we delete everyone but Smith & Jones from the ballot, Jones is the unique winner if & only if we count the ballots of John & those who vote the same as him. Then my public-proposal-debate version of FBC is saying that no one should gain by voting in a way that could make someone beat his favorite, if everyone else were deleted from the ballots. That's acceptable to me for the public debate version. Mike Ossipoff _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx
