I don't get it. Supose there are 3 candidates. Do you really regard it as inconceivable that all voters could, without effort, learn enough about all 3 of them to rank them? I think that could easily happen.
Let us suppose that they are "10000 people die", "5 die" and "eternal happiness." Now is it really true that you are just too damn lazy to rank them? You insist on mentioning just one in your vote? It seems to me there is a substantial subclass of elections in which everybody knows their full ranking, and everybody feels like an idiot to behave in Kislanko-laziness-style, and that feeling of don't-want-to-be-an-utter-idiot outweight the feeling of want-to-save-1-second-of-work. In that case, voters will rank everybody. I have no study to cite. I simply regard it as obvious. Next, I rather dislike the idea that a method with truncation allowed can be considered in the same breath as "condorcet methods" at all. A lot of authors simply rfuse to even consider ballot truncation or equal-rankings-permitted. Maybe they are dumb to do that, but they do it, and then when they talk about "condorcet method" they are referrring to ranked ballot methods. period. Not "partial ranking maybe if I feel like it" ballot methods. The opposite approach favored on EM is to allow total truncation and total equality. According to EM, then, the following method: 1. the only vote you are allowed to submit is ther maximally lazy vote in which A=B=C=...=Z. 2. we will pick a random winner. Is a "condorcet method" and somebody like me has no right to object to that phraseology. But I do object. I think it has to mean something, and I think the more truncation you allow, the less the word has any meaning. I also think, there is a reason the Australians made truncation illegal. Maybe you disagree with it, but obviously a large number of people in the world feel truncation is bad, even just haviing one voter truncate one vote is bad, and if your method refuses to cater to that feeling, well, then you are sacrificing something. (By "refuses to cater" I mean, "maassively screws up in response to this voter behavior" in many cases.) wds ---- election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
