James Green-Armytage > Sent: Friday, January 14, 2005 6:48 AM > > >This is an example of where expert jargon is counter-intuitive to a > >beginner. If a completed ranked ballot looks like this: > >Candiate Rank > >A 2 > >B 3 > >C 1 > >D 4 > >We tend to loosely say that "C is ranked 'higher' than B" which is > >counter-intuitive because the number 1 is 'lower' than the number 3. > >Anthony > > This is basically a question of common usage. I'm not totally > sure, but I think that there are plenty of other contexts > where a ranking of "1" is considered to be a very "high" > ranking, "higher" than a ranking of 2 or 10. Of course, in > most cases, a *score* of 1 is considered to be lower than a > score of 2, but when you're talking about ranking rather > score, lower numbers are generally understood to represent > higher rankings. > > Anyway, yes, I guess it can be confusing sometimes, but I > don't think that the usage is specific to voting methods.
This "confusion" arises because of the use of the word "ranking", where the winner could have the lowest score or the highest score, depending on how the rankings are to be assessed. In elections that use ranking in Australia, in Ireland and in the UK, the instructions on the ballot paper tell the voter to mark the candidates in "the order of your preference", with "1 against your first preference", etc. This ordering, "1" = first (most preferred), is implicitly accepted by all who use the term "preferential voting". It has been like this for more than a century. James ---- Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info