The reason why I'd start a Condorcet handcount by first ordering
the alternatives according to 1st choice vote is that, though
1st choice vote doesn't guarantee anything, it seems that it
is a rough, easily calculated, guide to estimating popularity.
So, when doing a handcount, I'd take Plurality winner & start
comparing it to the other high Plurality scorers, to find out
if it beats them, and I'd keep comparing the winner-so-far
to the highet-Pluralty-scoring alternative to which it hasn't
been compared yet.
I'd only do that in a handcount. For a computer program it would
just be unnecessary program complication, but in a handcount,
I'd want to take advantage of _any_ hint about how strong
a contender an alternative might be, if it could save me
some work.
As was pointed out, spatial studies would be useful to get
an idea of how helpful that handcount procedure would really
be.
Mike
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