Kevin Venzke said: > I hope I understood what you meant. When you say that the three > candidates each have "well-defined stances on a variety of issues," I > believe you're only saying that to make it clear that the voters are > rational in holding cyclic preferences.
I phrased things poorly. "Well defined stances" would imply that stances are fixed, and everything I said about candidates maneuvering becomes irrelevant. Here's what I should say: Say that each voter's preference order is a function of the candidates' stances, and assume that the candidates' stances are in fact objectively knowable. (e.g. We don't have to guess which of a candidate's conflicting statements is his "actual" stance.) Is it possible that, no matter what the candidates do, the 3 voters in our hypothetical electorate will always form a cycle? I now realize it's an uninteresting question. The situation I describe will only arise if the 3 voters have such stubbornly incompatible views that when the first guy says A>B>C, the other 2 will say B>C>A and C>A>B. If there's even a single exception then there is a CW. Alex ---- Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
