Ive just posted a definition of FARCS, and so now I wont say that FARCS is undefined.
But compare it to my criteria: My criteria speak of preference, sincere voting, falsified voting, etc. My criteria speak directly of the considerations, terms, and concerns of the real world.
Although Ive pointed out that it doesnt matter what prefer means, and though Ive posted a precise abstract definition of prefer, that term has an obvious real-world interpretation, one that is self-evident from the term itself.
Compare that directness with FARCS. Its far from obvious what a FARCS criterion has to do with actual voting and strategic concerns. Such a criterion speaks of rankings, something that is meaningless for a method that doesnt use rankings.
Criteria involving preference can (or at least so the assumption goes) be written votes-only, if theyre written only for rank methods. So, the idea of FARCS is to write rankings complying with the criterions premise, and then write actual votes consistent with the rankings--with the justification that the rankings are what the voter intended. Is it pretty obvious how weak that justification is? In what sense do you mean that a voter in Plurality intended a ranking?? If it isnt clear to you what that means, it isnt just you--it really is not clear. FARCS advocates on EM havent succeeded in clearly answering that. Do you see the sloppiness there? In contrast, with my criteria everything is defined, and relates directly to the actual concerns that criteria are about.
Now, maybe the FARCS criteria can match the results of my criteria. But, even if so, that isnt enough, if their assumptions cant be justified. If they dont clearly relate to real-world concerns. Remember?--Thats what criteria are intended to be about.
Aside from all that, how good is the assumption that criteria involving preference can be written votes-only if theyre written only for rankings?
It works for Condorcets criterion: If a candidate pair-wise beats each of the other candidates, then s/he should win.
But how about SFC? SFC involves the CW. The CW is defined in terms of preference. You could try substituting beats-all candidate for CW. Would that work? With any pair-wise count method, the beats-all candidate wins. That means that candidate over whom a majority rank the beats-all candidate must lose. So every pair-wise count method would meet votes-only SFC, if we use beats-all candidate for CW. And, if we dont use beats-all candidate for CW, then how do we interpret CW, if we arent allowed to mention preferences?
So, in addition to FARCS other problems, can FARCS criteria even be equivalent to preference criteria?
Can a FARCS advodcate on EM post a votes-only criterion which, with FARCS, is equivalent to SFC?
Another thing: When your criteria are written in terms of rankings, and Plurality fails, youre not in a good position to say that the criterion isnt merely acting as a rules criterion. Maybe Plurality fails because it doesnt have the kind of balloting on which your criteria are based.
Because my criteria make no mention of balloting system, its clear that if Plurality fails, it isnt because Plurality is being disfavored by a rules-criterion.
Mike Ossipoff
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