Greetings Diana and list members, Diana, you wrote: Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2003 10:54:45 +0100 "I know there are already far too many methods out there..."
Donald here: `When you're right, you're right', but go ahead and spoil our day anyway, give us a few more cycle resolutions. Diana: "...but here's another (two) that I'm vaguely partial to. I'm sure there are good reasons why neither of them is any good, but since I can't see them (and neither can my work colleagues) I thought I'd toss them out to this list for the eagle-eyed to pick over." Donald: Odds are that you are correct, that is, there are good reasons why neither of them is any good, but you are not alone, almost all the cycle resolutions are no good. Most people who concoct cycle resolutions do not understand the context of a circular tie. As a result, their cycle resolutions depend on defective data, which inturn makes the solution defective, or in other words, garbage in garbage out. I'm talking about the lower choices. A circular tie proves that the lower choices are flawed. To use the lower choices when they are flawed is the wrong thing to do. First, let me say that a circular tie is not the fault of Condorcet. When a circular tie has occurred, it merely means that Condorcet has reveled that the voters have voted in a circular pattern. At this point everyone should realize that something is wrong and should not use any cycle resolution that depends on the lower choices because the lower choices are at least suspect. A circular tie should be regarded as a warning bell to the fact that the lower choices in this election are flawed and should not be trusted. Most likely this flaw was caused by the voters not being informed well enough to make good lower choices. Years ago, on this list, I suggested that when Condorcet shows a circular tie that the best thing to do was to eliminate one candidate. Most likely this will break the cycle. Then you can resume using Condorcet if you must. Anyway, in my school of thinking, almost all choices are suspect and the policy should be to use as few as possible. This is one of the reasons I favor Irving because Irving will use less lower choices than any other multi choice method. Consider the following election: 45 Axx 45 Bxx 10 Cxx Condorcet will use all the lower choices. Irving will only use ten percent of the lower choices. Using less is best. A multi choice election that has a majority winner in the first choices is ideal because no lower choices will be used. Think about that, if that is the ideal, then we should stay as close as possible to the ideal as we can when picking an election method. Donald, ---- Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info