For what it's worth, I drew up a pretty simplistic diagram to make demonstrations of how a cycle can happen in election results:
http://www.channel1.com/users/dkesh/green/voting/condorcetparadox.png (available in SVG format as well) It's a simple triangle with a bunch of dots around it. A majority of the dots are closer to B than A, C than B, and A than C. I have also used even simpler diagrams (not online) with dots bunched around three points on a line, heavier on the edges than in the middle, to demonstrate a situation where IRV fails. I find that for some visual thinkers the diagrams really help their understanding. --Dan Keshet ---- Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
