On Jul 17, 2008, at 20:10 , [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Chris:
Truncation should be allowed, so no-one has to "fill out rankings"
if they
don't want to.
Total agreement there.
My suggestion is to try to adapt an idea from information theory:
when
designing a system for conveying information efficiently, give the
shortest code
words to the most likely messages.
Perhaps some EM aficionado can surprise us with an ingenious idea
along these
lines.
To me this sounds almost like a proof the the tree structure is the
superior method :-). I mean that the shortest codes can be said to be
single candidates. The most likely message is to support also the
group that this candidate belongs to, and then the party, and then
the alliance of parties.
This is a bit simplified model in the sense that the voter can not
say (using the shortest code words) which candidate of the group is
the second best etc. But it is easy to allow also that. One just has
to use longer code words, e.g. Candidate1>Candidate2. The default
completion of the vote could be e.g. to follow the position of the
last listed candidate in the tree =>
Candidate1>Candidate2>Group2>Party2>Alliance2. If Candidate1 would be
from a different party (and group) than Candidate2 but the voter
would like to follow the tree structure starting from Candidate1 then
he/she could use again a slightly longer code word
Candidate1>Candidate2>Group1 (also groups may have identities) and
that would be completed based of Group1's location in the tree.
Maybe it is also possible to cast a truncated vote =>
Candidate1>Candidate2>Group1>Nobody. Probably not a very common need.
(Candidate determined inheritance order would give the same code word
length (maybe even slightly shorter in some cases) but would be more
complex for the voters to understand (and could lead to use of
malicious inheritance orders).)
I'll skip the counting process for a moment :-).
Juho
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