robert bristow-johnson wrote:
robert bristow-johnson wrote:
...
i dunno how to, other than take the raw ballot data of some
existing IRV elections, but i would like to see how many of these
municipal IRV elections, that if the ballots were tabulated
according to Condorcet rules, that a cycle would occur.
Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: ...
I haven't run the data through my simulator yet, but it seems
cycles are rare.
i have to confess that i am less worked up about what pathologies
would result from a Condorcet cycle than i am about what pathologies
result from FPTP or IRV (or Borda or whoever) failing to elect the
Condorcet winner whether such exists. we know the latter actually
happens in governmental elections. i still have my doubts to any
significant prevalence of the former.
That's what the data might provide information about. If it is
representative and cycles are rare, then there's little to worry about,
except how opponents might exaggerate the faults. If cycles are common,
then one should be careful to pick the right cycle-breaker.
on the rare occasion a cycle ever happens, probably Tideman
Ranked-Pairs would be the best compromise between a fairer Schulze
beatpath and some method that has sufficient "lucidity" that voters
can understand it and have confidence that no "funny business" is
going on.
Yes. I think so, too, but Schulze has momentum (within technical
organizations, mostly), so the question is which is greater an advantage.
but whether it's beatpath or ranked-pairs or IRV rules as
the method that resolves a cycle, at least in this very rare
occasion, it's picking a non-Condorcet winner meaningfully, even if
there are conceptual ways to turn tactical with it. but then, how
profitable is it to vote tactically when there is little probability
to the conditions that would serve such tactical voting?
There would be two kinds, I think: attempted "vote management" by
parties and what we might call "ignorant strategy" that the voters do by
themselves, and which only distorts the outcome if lots of people do it.
The latter is not much of a threat, I think, and the method only has to
weather the former for a few elections before the parties see it isn't
going to work.
In small committees, the two would converge: poison pill type tricks are
possible with Condorcet methods, as well, but that's not the application
we're speaking of at the moment.
if it were one of those Condorcet methods and if there is little
likelihood of a cycle happening and if a savvy voter knows that, how
does it benefit his/her political interests to do anything other than
vote for their fav as their first choice and cover their ass with a
tolerable 2nd choice? how are they ever (assuming no cycle) hurting
their favorite or helping any unranked candidates (tied for last
place, in this voter's esteem) beat the 2nd choice? i really find it
hard to see the tactical interests as differing from the sincere
political interests.
Ignorant strategy could take the form of "I really really hate [major
party X], so I'll put him last", where there are also worse candidates
in the running, but the voter is used to two-party systems. Burial by
accident, as it were. Warren claims that will destroy most Condorcet
methods, because DH3 applies to that instance as well, but I'm not so
sure. It *does* destroy Borda, but so does agenda manipulating (fielding
loads of clones).
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