>Robla: >Breaking up the definition into two sections as though both are completely accurate and equal definitions of the Condorcet winner criterion makes it appear as though the Condorcet winner criterion is poorly defined. Do you believe that the Condorcet winner criterion is poorly defined?
--I believe the Condorcet winner criterion is designed to be defined for (and Condorcet himself had in mind) RANKED-BALLOT type voting methods. If you want to apply it to other more general kinds of voting methods, then you have to generalize the definition. There are two natural generalizations of the definition to make it also apply at least to range voting, and they are both discussed by me in the CRV page. More generally could consider, say, "asset voting" an unconventional voting method I invented http://math.temple.edu/~wds/homepage/works.html #77 which also was similar to an idea of Forrest Simmons. It was designed to be a multiwinner method but can be used single-winner. Is asset voting condorcet or not? Does the question even make sense? Not easy to say. A voter who gives his entire asset vote to Nader, is not necessarily saying "my option of Gore, Bush, Buchanan, Peroutka etc is, they are all equal." It is more like he is saying "I think my ranking of the candidates agrees with Nader's ranking of them." My point is, a "property" can be defined, or aturally defined, in a unique way for ranked ballot systems, but when you try to extend to mor general systems it sometimes can be undefinable, or undefined, or more than one possible way to define. So then you have to act appropriately when considering it. ---- Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info