(I only have time for a quick reply, and I haven't read any of the other recent discussion carefully.)
On Fri, Nov 29, 2002 at 11:48:53AM -0500, Raul Miller wrote: > A has a 2:1 supermajority requirement, B has no special majority > requirement, D is the default option, votes are > 3 ABD > 1 BDA > 1 DBA > > A defeats B by 4:1 > B defeats D by 4:1 > D defeats A by 4:3 > > Because D is the default option 4:3 cannot be an instance of the weakest > defeat, so the weakest defeat is 4:1. Your draft says: c. A weakest defeat is a defeat that has no other defeat weaker than it. There may be more than one such defeat. In this example, none of the defeats has a defeat weaker than it. Therefore, they are all weakest defeats, are are eliminated. That is the problem I was pointing out. So is it: A defeat by the default is always stronger than a defeat by a real option? > > It sounds like you're getting at something close to aj's > > proposal, in which any option defeated by the default option has no > > chance. If that's not what you mean to do, can you clarify the > > difference? > > That's exactly what I mean. The difference between this draft and aj's > earlier draft is that this characteristic of the default option doesn't > cause us to lose information where an otherwise significant option is > defeated by the default option. I see. However, this system (like aj's) still rewards the strategy of ranking the default option second, because a pairwise defeat by the default is effectively fatal. So it seems too prone to abuse for me. YAExample: sincere preferences are 3 ABD 2 BAD but voters vote strategically 3 ADB 2 BDA We are deadlocked. To remind, I suggest that the defeat D>A be scored for weakness purposes as 2:3. In this case, if the A voters truncate[1] 3 A 2 BDA then D>A 2:3 A>B 3:2 B>D 2:0 and A wins. Although A has escaped its supermajority requirement, I find this a lesser evil. Andrew [1] From http://www.electionmethods.org/evaluation.htm, in Condorcet/CSSD, "a majority never needs any more than truncation strategy to defeat a particular candidate, even when countering offensive order reversal by that candidate's voters." I haven't verified that this is true of my proposed system, but I believe it is.