This Part 1 apparently didn't post, so I'm re-sending it (and necessarily re-writing it, since I didn't save it):
Warren said: Ithe underlying theoretial attack is exactly that suggested by Mike Ossipoff for his "bias free Webster" method I reply: None of my 4 methods has that name. There are Bias-Free, Weighted Bias-Free, Cycle-Webster, and Adjusted-Rounding. Warren continues: , except that the underlying probabilistic model is now an exponential distribtuion not a uniform "distribution" I reply: Ok, you're referring to Bias-Free, because it's the only one of my 4 methods that makes that assumption. Warren continues: (I use the word in quotes since Ossipoff has in various ways ignored the requirements of probability theory, e.g. in his recent attack on the idea that probability distributions need to be normalizable I reply: Calm down, Warrren--you know what people here say about flaming. Don't let your emotions get you all confused, and make a fool of yourself again. A probability distribution can take any shape. For example, someone could write a program that would screen-print a number from a set of numbers, and give it a probability distribution of any shape that you request. A roulette wheel gives a uniform probability distribution for its chosen number, over the range of 0 or 00 to 36. B/(q+A) can roughly approximate the density of states over the population range. Mike Ossipoff ---- election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
