Sorry, I just said that Blake's argument treated the fairness of margins as an axiom in itself, but now I realize that he does provide a specific justification for it.
I quote from http://lists.topica.com/lists/RankedPairs/read/message.html?mid=1600781094&sort=d&start=15 Blake wrote: >The argument for using margins is fairly straight-forward. If the >voters on the winning side are evidence that a proposition is true, than >the voters on the losing side are evidence against it. Therefore, it >makes sense to consider both when deciding our confidence in the >decision. That was Condorcet's approach. View the election in terms of >evidence and probability. That is my approach as well. However not >everyone agrees. This is a good point. However, I still think that the strategic issue gets more priority. When Condorcet made this probabilistic argument, I doubt that he was taking strategic manipulation into account. ---- Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
