James replying to Curt...
>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.
You don't seem to have defined "support". What does it mean to support a
candidate?
>
>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.
"Polling", as a reason, seems rather broad. Can you be more specific?
>
>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.
Well, the most obvious way to me is to find the share of first choice
votes for each candidate. I'm still not quite sure what we would use this
for, though.
>
>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.
I don't think that you have defined the criterion very precisely.
>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 ?
I don't understand what you mean by (a).
my best,
James
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