Dave Ketchum wrote:
Well, Fairvote would like to make us believe that some cases, if the
Condorcet winner had won, we'd all be saying "but wait! He didn't have
enough core support! Boo!".
But, we chose ranking rather than Approval to let voters approve, but
with unequal liking. Bush haters could want to vote both Gore and Nader
as better, but not as equally liked - with whoever they ranked second
still seen as better than Bush.
True. If you have a binary level, Approval is the obvious method to use.
If you have rank, then Approval will be problematic because you can't
designate relative strength within those you do approve. Condorcet still
respects relative rank, but it seems they argue it doesn't respect
relative rank *enough*, particularly when the rank is relative to first
place.
(Presumably we should also be saying, if the Plurality winner won,
"but wait! Lots of people second-ranked someone else! Boo!". One might
wonder how much "core support" is enough.)
But, if the Plurality winner won without a runoff, all three methods
would agree as to winner.
I was a bit unclear here. What I meant was that if the method had been
"Ranked Plurality" (everybody submits rank-ballots and whoever is listed
first on most ballots win), then they would say that this is bad because
it doesn't take lesser preferences into account. So this shoehorning of
Plurality is too bad in one direction, and Approval is too bad in the
other. Why, then, is Condorcet also too bad in the other? How much "core
support" is too much, and why?
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