Dave Ketchum > Sent: Sunday, December 21, 2008 3:51 AM > Responding to one thought for IRV vs C (Condorcet):
My comments were not specific to "IRV versus Condorcet". > > JG had written > > When there is no majority winner they may well be prepared to take a > > compromising view, but there are some very real difficulties in > > putting that into effect for public elections. > Given that a majority of first preferences name Joe, IRV and > C will agree that Joe wins. > > Given four others each getting 1/4 of first preferences, and > Joe getting a majority of second preferences: > IRV will award one of the 4, for it only looks at first preferences > in deciding which is a possible winner. > C will award one of the 5. Any of them could win, but Joe is > stronger any outside the 5. The "problem" cases I had in mind were much less extreme. When there is a strong Condorcet winner, I think the idea would be sellable to ordinary electors (but there are remaining problems about covering the rare event of cycles). What I think would be completely unsellable would be the weak Condorcet winner. That winner would, of course, truly be the Condorcet winner - no question, but that does not mean the result would be politically acceptable to the electorate. Such a weak winner would also be considered politically weak once in office. It MAY be possible to imaging (one day) a President of the USA elected by Condorcet who had 32% of the first preferences against 35% and 33% for the other two candidates. But I find it completely unimaginable, ever, that a candidate with 5% of the first preferences could be elected to that office as the Condorcet winner when the other two candidates had 48% and 47% of the first preferences. Condorcet winner - no doubt. But effective President - never! James No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.176 / Virus Database: 270.9.19/1860 - Release Date: 21/12/2008 15:08 ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
