Juho Laatu wrote:
--- On Fri, 2/1/09, Kristofer Munsterhjelm <[email protected]> wrote:

Reverse Condorcet: If the election is (n-1, n) and
there's a Condorcet loser, all but the Condorcet loser
should be elected.

Example:
- 10 Republican candidates, one Democrat candidate
- 55% support to Republicans
- 45% support to Democrats
- 10 candidates will be elected
- The Democrat candidate is a Condorcet loser
=> Should D not be elected?

To simplify,

55: R1 > R2 > D
45: D > R1 > R2

and the election is (2, 3). The integer Droop quota is 34. STV does this: R1 is elected, then D is elected. That seems fair, but we can't get around the fact that D is the Condorcet loser (R* beats D 55-to-45).

So yes, D should be elected, and thus Reverse Condorcet isn't desirable. Actually, since R1 and D are both supported by a Droop quota, that means that Reverse Condorcet is incompatible with the DPC. So much for that.

Does this also mean that it's possible to find a (2,3) "overlap" Yee-like diagram where, even for the ideal method (whatever it is), the shape between two candidates is not Voronoiesque filled with the composite color of the two (e.g purple for the space between red and blue candidates)? I'm not quite sure.

A (seemingly) reasonable generalization of the Euclidean distance Voronoi would be this: For each point, find the two candidate points so that the sum of the distances to those two points are minimized. Color p according to the composite color of the k closest candidates (for a (k,n) election). But doesn't that correspond to the election method where you elect the CW, then remove him and elect the next CW and continue like that until done? That method is not PR.

Maybe it would be easier to visualize for the 1D Left-Center-Right case. With a sum-of-points metric, we would get something like

L = Left (red)
C = center (green)
R = right (blue)

-1.5             0             +1.5
L                C                R
|----------------|----------------|
    L+C (yellow)     C+R (cyan)

L covers from -1.5 to -0.5 (length 1)
C covers from -0.5 to +0.5 (length 1)
R covers from +0.5 to +1.5 (length 1)

If we're dealing with a Gaussian distribution, this may be the optimum. Say the Gaussian is centered at 0.3. If the method elects L, it can be improved (support more people) by electing C or R instead. That is, if the diagram means that
all who are placed left of -0.5 vote L > C > R
all who are placed right of 0.5 vote R > C > L
the rest vote C > L > R or C > R > L depending on who they're closer to,

then the outcome might be right, because most voters vote C > something.

So how does that give with our more radical Left-Center-Right example?

46: Left > Center > Right
46: Right > Center > Left
 8: Center > Left > Right

which should elect Center in a single-winner election, but Left and Right in a multiwinner one?

That is not a single Gaussian, so it's outside of the scope of the extended Yee diagram. It's also outside the scope of the single-winner Yee diagram, but one could reason in favor of Center for the single-winner election as such: Consider the case where L is elected (WLOG). That excludes the R Gaussian and also the center part of the L Gaussian. However, if the method elects C, it covers the tails of both L and R Gaussians, and since 8 voted C > L > R, at least one of those tails is pretty large. Hence, one should elect C.

-

Ultimately, my error in proposing Reverse Condorcet might have been that I generalized the multiwinner Yee diagrams too far. At least I know how, now. If my analysis is correct, one shouldn't be able to find a non-Voronoiesque (2,3) extended Yee diagram, but that's simply because they don't cover all situations (because of the voter distribution assumptions they make).
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