Say that there are N voters. N(a>b) + N(b>a) = N In this case you are right, winning votes and margins produce the same result. The problem is when N(a>b) + N(b>a) + N(a=b) = N Then results are different.
Further meanings can be implied when people do not indicate preferences. It could mean a=b (my opinion is that candidates a and b are interchangeable clones) or a?b (I do not have any opinion and I rely on the other voters judgement): N(a>b) + N(b>a) + N(a=b) + N(a?b) = N I explained why this leads to the use of relative margins intead of margins or winning-votes in order to match optimally the ordering result with the smaller probability of a reverse pairwise comparison using ranked pairs. Refer to paragraph 2) on May 22, message: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/9774 Steph. ---- For more information about this list (subscribe, unsubscribe, FAQ, etc), please see http://www.eskimo.com/~robla/em
