Rob's proposal sounds familiar, as well as maybe even plausible. Let's try it out on a very simple election:
100: A>B (A and B are the only candidates, everyone loves A and detests B.) Delete B from ballots, you get: 100: A Delete A from ballots, rename B as A, you get: 100: A The proposal makes A and B 'clones'! Well, if you don't like an example which starts with just two candidates and therefore will reduce to no-contest when one is deleted, let's try again with a third candidate, e.g. start with: 100: A>B>C. Either way - deleting B, or deleting A and then renaming B as A - you end up with: A>C. So again, A and B are 'clones'. More generally, the proposal will make 'clones' out of any two candidates A and B which are adjacent in preference for all voters - no matter how voters distribute among the alternatives A>B, B>A, A=B. As the first example illustrates clearly, such 'clonehood' lacks one property that some people (including me) find essential. Namely, suppose voters learn that the winner is some (unspecified) member of a given set of 'clones'. Then there should be overall indifference as to WHICH of the 'clones' has won! Joe Weinstein Long Beach CA USA ----Original Message Follows---- From: Rob LeGrand <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [EM] New clones definition? Date: Tue, 2 Apr 2002 21:55:37 -0800 (PST) I just thought of a possible definition of clones: Candidates A and B are clones in a ranked-ballot election if and only if deleting A from the ballots and renaming B as A is equivalent to deleting B from the ballots. Example: 49:Reagan>Anderson>Carter 33:Carter>Anderson>Reagan 18:Anderson>Carter>Reagan Deleting Carter gives: 49:Reagan>Anderson 33:Anderson>Reagan 18:Anderson>Reagan Deleting Anderson gives: 49:Reagan>Carter 33:Carter>Reagan 18:Carter>Reagan Now the sets of ballots are identical except for the name of Anderson/Carter, so Anderson and Carter are clones in this election. On the other hand, deleting Reagan gives: 49:Anderson>Carter 33:Carter>Anderson 18:Anderson>Carter Which isn't identical to either of the other sets of ballots, so Reagan isn't a clone of either of them. Can this definition ever fail? Has it been suggested before? -- Rob LeGrand [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.onr.com/user/honky98/rbvote/calc.html __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - online filing with TurboTax http://taxes.yahoo.com/ _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com
