>In your example of 3 main rival candidates (A, B, C) and one dark horse candidate (D), you said that range voting prevented the dark horse from winning. Graphically speaking, there would be a triangle formed by the three main candidates , while the dark horse would lie somewhere outside of it.
>My question is, what if the dark horse candidate is in fact a compromise candidate (i.e. his position D is inside the triangle formed by ABC)? In this case, he might truly be second choice on all the ballots without being first choice on any of them. Michael Rouse mrouse1 at mrouse.com --REPLY by WDS In a situation where ABC are the vertices of an equilateral tirangle, D is its center, and all voters are located at ABC and prefer candidates closer to them, then yes, each voter honestly would rank D 2nd and D would then be the honest Condorcet winner. D might also be the honest range voting winner (depends how the honest voters score people) or it might be one of {A,B,C}. In this situation the C-voters in Condorcet would be motivated to strategically downgrade D in their votes to bottom below all others. If enough voters did that D would no longer be Condorcet winner and one of {A,B,C} would win. Of course in that case some voters who lost would want to upgrade D... In range voting, the C-voters also would like to vote C=99, B=A=D=0 and if enough voters acted that way one of {A,B,C} would win; but then the voters for the losers would be motivated to upgrade D to 99 co-equal top, and then D would win. ...so... I don't think Rouse's scenario leads to any clear victory fo range over Condorcet or vice versa (I think it was intended to make Condorcet look superior to Range, but that isn't happening). wds ---- election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info