Eric Gorr wrote: > > At 11:47 AM -0700 8/31/03, Bart Ingles wrote: > >You could say that "B is obviously preferred by *majorities* of people > >over every other option, but even so the "majorities" are merely > >incidental. B would be the CW without them: > > > >40: A > >10: C>B > >20: C > >35: B>A > > > >Here B is preferred by *pluralities* of people over every other option, > >but is still the CW. > > > >> Now, the fact that I can point to a method that will select B is a > >> reason why I would prefer that method to a method that would select > >> something other then B. > > > >So do you still think the CW should win in the immediately preceding > >example? > > There is no good reason I can come up with which would indicate that > B should not win as > 50% (i.e. a majority) of people in your example > prefers B over both C and A.
I never said that B shouldn't win, merely that B is NOT preferred by a majority over either A or C. Only 45/105 prefer B to A, and only 35/105 prefer B to C. A majority would require 53 votes. > > If so, your belief must be based on something other than > >majority, since the only majority above is the 75:30 majority which > >prefer A to C. > > This is utterly meaningless as RP does not meet IIA. By ignoring B, > you have essentially provided a completely different example from the > one you gave above. Who's ignoring B? I already stated above that B was preferred by pluralities over A and C, and was therefore the Condorcet winner. I merely state here that the only majority defeat in the example is A over C, with 75/105 of the electorate. I wasn't endorsing A as the winner, I was merely pointing out that the CW (B) does not have the support of a majority of voters over either A or C. I'm not sure why you mention RP and IIA here. However I do see hope in the fact that you seem to regard A's majority over C as meaningless. My original point in responding to this thread was that "the very concept of 'majority' is meaningless when there are three or more candidates." Bart ---- Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
