Kevin Venzke wrote: > > --- Bart Ingles <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> a �crit : > > > > > Kevin Venzke wrote: > > > > > > Yes, but I think we all still like Condorcet. > > Bart wrote: > > > > I'm not crazy about it. In a ranked election to choose an election > > system I might rank it above "Irving", but in an approval election I > > would likely bullet vote for approval voting. > > Sorry for speaking for you (and anyone else). I was just thinking that, > within the "turkey" thread, it didn't seem like anyone was actually > saying Condorcet was bad.
I didn't say it was bad necessarily, I just said I wasn't crazy about it. If nothing else, at least it appears to be one of the few systems (along with Approval) which are free from both Duverger's law and from catastrophic strategy incentives. But some of my misgivings are noted below. > I take it you prefer Approval because it requires its winners to be overtly > "approved" on ballots? That was my original reason, in that Approval appeared to be capable of dumping very low-utility/low-worth Condorcet winners when the number of candidates is small. Other reasons: (1) Approval works on existing voting equipment, while Condorcet requires a computer to tally the ballots. Translating preference orders to an N x N matrix is an n-squared operation, which would not be possible on a public scale without computers. So even Australia, which has been using ranked ballots for years, would likely need to retool to support Condorcet elections. Manual recounts would be out of the question (for what that's worth). (2) The people I have talked to on this list and elsewhere who have actually been involved in conducting elections have been pretty adamant that the system must be simple to administer, participate in, and understand. (3) Strategy concerns, not necessarily catastrophic but enough to complicate voting. For example, under Condorcet voters have the ability to dump a low-utility Condorcet winner using a prisoner's dilemma-based strategy. Some of us are quick to discount the possibility of voters using this type of strategy, but this phenomenon is actually quite common. Civil society is built on individuals sacrificing to varying degrees for the common good. We willingly forgo certain things without expecting immediate compensation, because we expect to be compensated in the "big picture". Otherwise we'd all be out looting museums. Or common courtesy-- take the simple act of holding a door open for a stranger carrying an armload of packages-- it's not like you expect a tip. Rather, you expect to reap the benefits of living in a society where people hold doors open for strangers with packages. In any case, whether to pursue this strategy or not is one more decision voters would have to face, in addition to ranking the candidates. In some cases it could be the more difficult decision. With Approval, the strategy is much simpler: decide where to set your threshold. If you are undecided about a candidate who is right on the threshold, you can always toss a coin (or better yet, focus your research on that candidate, rather than waste your time on the "no-brainer" choices). (4) One Condorcet strategy situation occurs to me which apparently does not involve a prisoner's dilemma: when you really do have NO preference between some of the candidates. In this case, it seems to me, you should always rank the indifferent candidates strategically relative to one another, presumably by burying the one(s) who present the greatest threat to your favorite. To expand this a bit, I can imagine a voter presented with a long list of candidates who ranks the top few sincerely, and then decides he doesn't care about the rest. But instead of truncating, the voter should probably rank these candidate in inverse order of their threat potential, with any likely Condorcet winners ranked last. In essence, if you have no preference between two or more candidates you should never show it sincerely on the ballot (unless they are running equal in the polls as well). (5) I haven't seen much evidence that anything more complicated than Approval is needed. For myself, I have yet to participate in an election where I would have had difficulty voting an Approval ballot. I CAN think of elections where ranking all the candidates would have been difficult, especially when there are many other open seats and ballot measures to contend with. (6) It would seem to make sense to implement the simpler, cheaper method first. Then if something more elaborate and expensive is needed, implement it only where needed-- probably in larger elections that attract many candidates. Elections with only 3 or 4 candidates should probably remain Approval even if Condorcet equipment becomes available. ---- Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
