Hello everybody. I'm Josh, I, as a hobby, am very interested in voting methods.
Has everyone seen Episode 11 and 12 of the Annenberg/CPB math educational series "For All Practical Purposes" ? Episodes 11 through 15 are about "Social Choice" and 12, specifically, is about voting methods. It's a little too low budget for prime time, but, it's got a great presentation level for anyone who's at least finished high school and is willing to pay attention, and is not so dumbed down to be insulting to someone trained in the art. The main example of the show is about a 5 way primary race for an imaginary party. They use Plurality, Plurality with Runoff, Sequential Runoff Voting, Borda and Condorcet. They also hand pick an interesting result, in that a different of each of the 5 candidates wins with each different method. There are interview segments with Kenneth Arrow at the end of the tape, where he explains that his theorem does not say that there are no better methods, just that there is no perfect method. He compares this to engine efficiency. They've proved it's impossible to have 100% efficient engine, but not that you can't have a better engine. My idea is we vote on the best election method. We first vote on what voting method we use to to count the results of our vote to choose the best election method. To find out which method we use to count the resulsts of our vote to find the best method of counting the votes for our vote to find the best voting method, we hold a vote. We can continue like this for hours, but, I'm sure we all have better things to do. -Josh P.S. As dictator for life, I consider this a strictly abstract exercise. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This message is intended only for the personal and confidential use of the designated recipient(s) named above. If you are not the intended recipient of this message you are hereby notified that any review, dissemination, distribution or copying of this message is strictly prohibited. This communication is for information purposes only and should not be regarded as an offer to sell or as a solicitation of an offer to buy any financial product, an official confirmation of any transaction, or as an official statement of Lehman Brothers. Email transmission cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error-free. Therefore, we do not represent that this information is complete or accurate and it should not be relied upon as such. All information is subject to change without notice.
