Kevin, In your latest post you alluded to MCA's failure of Independence from Irrelevant Ballots (IIB):
>A nice thing about the majority requirement is that if it's assumed that >you are going to vote, there's no way that your vote can move the majority >from one candidate to another. > But but the bad thing about the "majority requirement" is that choosing between not voting and voting for nobody (ignoring the competitive/viable candidates) can change the winner by changing the majority threshold. I suggest that MCA instead of electing the top-ratings winner only if that candidate's top-ratings score is greater than half the total number of valid ballots, it elects the top-ratings winner (TRW) if the TRW's top-ratings score is not smaller than his/her maximum pairwise opposition. (Here I'm referring to the FBC complying version of MCA that uses 3-slot ratings ballots, but this mechanism could equally be used for the version you were discussing that uses hybrid FPP-approval ballots, and also to Bucklin.) Doesn't this fix MCA's IIB problem at no cost (except a bit more complexity)? Chris Benham ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info