On Mon, 18 Oct 2004 19:32:22 -0400 James Green-Armytage wrote:
That's why we want an election method that can find the compromise choice that serves 60% of the people when we might otherwise get some faction's 40% or 41% choice.
Of course, majoritarian methods like Condorcet can't guarantee 60%, or anything over 50.00001%. But anyway, I agree with you that the probabilistic "timeshare" approach is not a good one for serious public offices (mayor, president, etc.) or decisions.
Actually, you cannot guarantee to please any particular percentage of the voters.
Condorcet is an attempt to do the best that can be done with whatever ballots get cast.
IRV talks loudly of a majority, but they are happy with a majority of whatever ballots are left after discarding some of those that do not help make a majority.
Try for size an election in which truncation is permitted (should be permitted to avoid demanding that voters vote beyond their understanding of the candidates), and that the issues cause each voter to reject most candidates:
30 A 29 B,D 27 C 13 D 1 E
We can get here with strong disagreements on two issues such as abortion.
IRV will discard C, D, and E, and declare A winner with a majority (just over half) of the remaining 59%.
Condorcet will see that B, C, and E are least liked, and declare D winner with 42% of total votes.
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