Allen Pulsifer wrote: > Going back to the example I gave, the Condorcet majority that elected D was > made up of everyone who did not rank A the highest, i.e., the Not A's, and > they all coalesced around D. In reality a coalition like that would never > happen and if it did, it could not be held together. In fact, in the > example I gave, the only thing that allowed D in the party was the A voters: > > 166:A>B>D>C > 166:A>C>D>B > 83:A>D>B>C > 83:A>D>C>B > etc. > > If only a small portion of those voters realized that their strongest > head-to-head competitor was Candidate D, and then proceeded to downgrade him > to last place, then under any system D would be shut out and A would win. > That is what would happen in reality, and IMHO, in order to have healthy > governance, that is what should happen.
This is a wonderful example of the fundamental flaw with this class of argument that I mentioned before. Why assume that only the A voters would attempt to manipulate the election by changing their votes? If the B & C voters, who certainly prefer D over A, get a hint that the A voters are attempting to manipulate the election, they can bury A and promote D and give D the victory - 500 to 499, which was the sincere outcome to begin with. ---- election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info