Welcome to the list! On Oct 13, 2009, at 7:48 AM, robert bristow-johnson wrote:
it is also important to have a deterministic and monotonic measure of voter support that is understandable to the less scholarly
I have often promoted the measure of least additional votes required to become a Condorcet winner as one understandable and natural/fair (and simple, easy to display) measure of which candidate is the best. This measure leads to the minmax(margins) method. The "least additional votes" approach minimizes the strength of opposition to change the winner to any single alternative winner after the election (and thereby aims at making the society more stable).
Not all on this list agree that minmax(margins) is a good method. It may in some extreme cases elect outside the Smith set. But in such cases the defeats within the Smith set are stronger than defeats of the winner outside the Smith set, so electing that candidate would not break my heart :-).
When deciding which Condorcet method is best some people put more weight on resistance against strategic voting while some try to optimize the output with sincere votes. Different environments may have different needs with respect to strategic voting. In environments where strategies are not expected to be a problem (in Condorcet methods) one may use the latter type of criteria.
Just wanted to point this out since you seemed to make the assumption that the best winner must come from the Smith set.
BR, Juho Laatu ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
