I know many of us are here to work on the best method for various social choice purposes. But many of us are specifically interested in political elections.
And there's a problem with this. Plurality actually serves two purposes. It is a bad way to select a winner, but it is also a way to track percentage support over a period of time, and by determining proportional support when it's relevant.
Democratic primaries are an example. The proportion of votes a candidate receives determines how many delegates they receive. But even if that particular decision structure is done away with, there are plenty of other reasons to track proportional support - polling, for instance.
And this is something that Condorcet methods cannot do. You cannot derive, from a Condorcet ballot collection, how much percentage support each candidate got. You can't give each candidate a share of 100% in a way that all candidates would agree on. If you can, I'd love to know how.
Is this an already identified criteria? The ability to determine percentage support? The Siffert Criteria? :-) If so, Condorcet fails it; at least, I haven't seen a technique that would allow it to pass it. What voting methods can convincingly a) identify the total available support (in terms of that vote method) for all candidates, and b) determine what percentage of that support each candidate received ?
Thanks, Curt
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