I will talk of these in the order listed: Plurality, Approval, Range, IRV, and Condorcet. Other is simply any other method - which do not get discussed because I have not heard of them as competitive with those discussed.
Three candidates: H(ot) - I WANT this one to win. C(old) - I WANT this one to lose. W(arm) - better than C, but not as good as H. Plurality: What is used in most US elections. Satisfies most voters' thinking most of the time. BUT, makes trouble by too many failures as to letting voters express their desires in some elections. NEED to permit thinking to be expressed more completely for, besides satisfying these voters, this can affect who wins. NEED to let Plurality thinking be expressed easily, for this will please most voters most of the time. NEEDS runoffs to recover when there is no clear majority winner Gives voters a second chance when their first vote was not for one of the leaders. Can be inadequate for, as the French demonstrated in a presidential election, multiple agreeable candidates can split their votes to let fringe candidates come in first and second in the election. Some examples: Gore vs Bush: A near tie. Those who voted for Nader, etc., could likely have affected who won if choosing between Gore and Bush was also permitted to them. McCain vs Clinton and Obama: Could be all three plus others on some ballots this November - worse than Gore vs Bush! Village election in which I will vote this Tuesday: Three candidates for mayor: Current mayor vs TWO wannabe replacements. Headache for those like me who see C vs W vs H. Approval: A bit better than Plurality, and trivial to implement: Can vote H+W over C, but not at the same time as satisfying my Plurality desire to vote H over W+C. Often there is not even a hopefully useful poll to help me guess which way to go this time. Range: A considerable increase in complexity offered to voters and imposed on counters; not clear that the value improvement is worth it. Given a rating scale of 0-99, voters would logically rate H at 99 and C at 0. Many advise rating W with H or C (99 or 0) for same reasons as for Approval - which gives no benefit for the complexity. Counting, if done by hand, gets to be labor for the ratings assigned by each voter must be summed. IRV: While using the same ballot as Condorcet, and usually agreeing as to winner, its different counting method can disagree: Spoilers: While discarding candidates for having least first choice votes, IRV can discard the Condorcet winner because, while the winner is better liked than the next in line, the better liking would not be visible without looking at remaining ballots. Cycles: While these are a visible pain to resolve in Condorcet, they represent near ties with IRV selecting any one by luck. Condorcet: Some claim more complexity than for Range. I counter that any such is rewarded with better value: Voting: Rank best liked at top; rank any equally liked the same. These are the ones that would be voted for in Plurality or Approval. If more are liked enough, rank those best liked among them at next rank. Repeat as desired. Counting: Can sort per top rank. If more than half agree as to candidate, this is winner. Can do full count as in a tournament. For each pair of candidates, x and y, how many voted x>y and how many y>x. NOTE that inequalities are ALL that are tested for. Magnitude of difference in rank matters not; unranked is below the lowest voter rank. If any candidate x beat all the ys, x wins. Else there is a cycle such as A>B>C>A and the near tie must be analyzed to decide on winner. -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek Dave Ketchum 108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY 13827-1708 607-687-5026 Do to no one what you would not want done to you. If you want peace, work for justice. ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info