I think the problem with such a general term is that there are any number of concepts which it could describe. Even if you could decide to use the phrase as a 'term of art' for one specific concept, you would have to persuade others to abandon their own usages.
Bart > Toplak Jurij wrote: > > During the last days the discussion on this list has focused primarily > on the terminology. Coincidently I am working on a paper that tries to > define "preferential voting". > > Literature offers numerous understandings and definitions: > - 'preferential voting' is often used as a synonim for Alternative > Vote or IRV > - 'preferential voting' is sometimes used as another name for STV > - 'preferential voting' is often used to denote 'ranking methods' > (thus including STV, AV, Borda, etc.) > - 'preferential voting is often used to denote a preference for a > single candidate within List PR (this definition is used mainly in > Europe) > - mathematicians put first-past-the-post in the group of preferential > voting schemes, but approval voting is not a member of this group > - some authors put US primaries under 'preferential voting' (Katz, for > instance) > > Is it possible to define preferential voting at all? > I'd be grateful for any comments. ---- Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
