Trying some fresh thinking for Condorcet, and what anyone should be
able to see in the X*X array. I am ignoring labels such as Schulze
and Ranked Pairs - this is human-doable and minimal effort -
especially with normally having a CW and most cycles having the
minimal three members.
1. Look at any pair of candidates. Loser is not the CW (there can
be a tie in any comparison here - NOT likely in a normal election, but
we have to be prepared with responses for such).
2. If there are other possible CWs, repeat step 1 with latest winner
and one of them.
3. If there are other candidates latest winner has not been compared
with, compare it with each of them.
4. If winner wins each of these, it is CW.
5. Winner and each who beat it in step 4 are cycle members. Also,
any candidate beating any of these is also a cycle member.
IF there is a CW, it should win - anything else is a complication,
even if some math makes claims for the something else.
Otherwise a simple cycle resolution should apply. Simply
canceling the smallest margin has been thought of - that value means
minimum difference in vote counts between actual and what is assumed.
Note that each cycle member would be CW if remaining cycle
members were ignored.
As to voting:
Equal ranks permitted.
Write-ins permitted, and such a candidate wins with the same
vote counts as if nominated.
As to clones, strategy, primaries, and runoffs - all seem best
ignored, though only a nuisance if some are determined to involve such.
Dave Ketchum
On Nov 8, 2009, at 6:33 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:
robert bristow-johnson wrote:
On Nov 5, 2009, at 1:35 PM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:
robert bristow-johnson wrote:
i don't think a sequence of elimination rounds would be okay, but
the method of picking the biggest loser for each round needs to
be debated. i am not sure what would be best.
Are you referring to IRV here?
no. i mean if there is a Condorcet cycle, as an alternative to
Schulze or Ranked Pairs or whatever, you could start with the Smith
Set and, with some meaningful metric, eliminate a candidate deemed
to be the biggest loser, then rerun the superficial Condorcet tally
(just see if there is a Condorcet winner among the candidates left)
and repeat until a Condorcet winner is apparent from the candidates
left over.
I've been browsing old posts of this list, and I've encountered the
idea or method of "sprucing up", which may be of interest in this
respect:
http://lists.electorama.com/htdig.cgi/election-methods-electorama.com/2004-December/014372.html
The relevant post for determining cycles is here:
http://lists.electorama.com/htdig.cgi/election-methods-electorama.com/2004-December/014373.html
and basically says that, in public elections, and in every election
if the base method passes certain criteria, the question of how to
resolve cycles can be reduced to drawing the borders of three
regions of a triangle. The complexity of the question has thus been
reduced quite a bit, even if it is now very abstract.
On another note, Condorcet cycles don't have to be resolved through
elimination. Also, there may be subsets of the Smith or Schwartz
set, such as the uncovered (Landau, Fishburn) set, that have just
one candidate even when the former sets have multiple, that can be
used to resolve the cycles. Picking uncovered candidates confers
protection against certain forms of strategy, as well.
All of this is theoretical, since the methods are too clumsy for
public proposal, but one has to start somewhere :-)
You're right. If I were to guess, I'd say that in most situations,
unless the electorate is small or uncertain, there will be a CW;
however, once the method has been adopted, parties will try to
coordinate strategies to induce a cycle,
really? Terry B (also a Burlington resident) told me that, and i
find that to be an untested hypothesis. since the parties do not
know who will benefit from a cycle (who can tell the future?), i
really have my doubts about that.
They'll try, but that doesn't necessarily mean they'll succeed. If
the method resists the initial strategy, they would eventually give
up. In the case of STV, vote management did work (but it was very
risky), and so the parties continued, adding noise to the system. I
do think the "good" methods (River, MAM/Ranked Pairs, Schulze, etc)
will manage to resist the initial attempts at coordinated strategy,
but it does emphasize that you need some resistance to strategy in
order to survive the metaphorical birth of fire.
Some strategies could be maintained longer than others. Those that
involve manipulation of the candidate set would be easier for a
party than those that involve electoral strategy, for instance; so a
method should be cloneproof (which the three I mentioned are), and
should be independent of as many alternatives as possible (the three
are all independent of candidates not in the Smith set, and River is
also independent of Pareto-dominated alternatives).
The voters themselves might also strategize. Such strategy would be
less coordinated, but this is where the critics of Condorcet focus
their efforts: if a large share of the electorate "bury" candidates
(vote A > ... > B instead of A > B > ... because B "is a threat"),
then you can get bad outcomes. The question here is whether the
public will actually do that.
in Burlington Vermont, Repubs who voted for their candidate as
their first pick actually helped elect (with IRV) the candidate
they liked the least and that would not have happened if it was
Condorcet. they are mistaken in their belief that their candidate
(the FPTP winner) should have won, but i can understand their voter
regret in that their vote for their guy actually caused the
election of the candidate they liked the least.
Yes, it brings to mind a few pictures I saw on the web.
http://www.braindoll.net/vote/#Which%20version%20is%20best%20%28or:
%20Grudgeless%20Match%20between%20the%20Tomorrow%20Twins%29.3.1
FPTP's football field is nearly vertical, IRV's is better but still
has a hill in it (minor parties are safe as long as they're minor,
but when they start getting large, they'll interfere with the runoff
process). Condorcet's is flat :-)
There's certainly precedence for this,
not with Condorcet there is. it's never been used in a government
election.
I meant more broadly. The parties will *try*, but will they succeed?
Depends on the method.
Unlike FairVote et al, we don't have a strong voice saying "Hey
public, if you think Plurality sucks, implement [method here]".
but if FairVote won't keep all of their eggs in the IRV basket,
then we need someone to do the same for Condorcet.
FairVote doesn't? I thought their problem was that they had
"committed" to IRV as the electoral method from heaven, and thus
they have to stick with it rather than, for instance, say "Oh, oops,
we were wrong, turns out that system is actually better".
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