Dave already explained the use of the equal sign. I was just lazy to invent any specific order in my example ballots so I used simple ties. Voters are free to list all of them in their order of preference.
Condorcet methods are good methods in such sense that they are not very vulnerable to strategic voting and on the other hand they allow voters to give quite a lot of information on their preferences (and all this info will be taken into account when determining the winner). In some other methods ballots carry more information (like numerical candidate ratings) but they have more difficulties with strategies. Condorcet methods are not very widely used today. Partly this may be due to the higher complexity of Condorcet methods. They are relatively tedious in large scale with manual counting. But computers can do the calculations easily. One just needs to collect locally all pairwise comparison results (how many voted X>Y etc.) and then send this data upwards. Another reason why Condorcet methods are not used in wide scale today is that there are quite number of them and it is not quite obvious which one to take into use. Actually all of them may be good enough when compared to many methods in use today but selecting one can be difficult. Experts also have different opinions on which of the "Condorcet completion methods" is the ultimate best. All Condorcet methods elect the same winner when one of the candidates beats all the others (=the Condorcet criterion). But Condorcet methods have the interesting property that in some situations A may be preferred to B, B to C and C to A. This is where different Condorcet completion methods differ from each others. Third problem of Condorcet methods is that there are some nasty strategies that may be used. It is however quite difficult to apply them, especially in typical large public elections where voters make independent decisions. And if someone tries to apply strategies they easily fail and may rather hurt the strategists. In most practical situations the voters can just forget the strategies this and rank the candidates sincerely. Condorcet methods are thus relatively strategy resistant although some strategic voting scenarios exist (in the most commonly iscussed one voters can try to introduce an artificial loop in the opinions and thereby fool the system). I listed some of the problems of Condorcet methods above, but in general Condorcet methods are really good general purpose single winner methods for typical political elections. There are also Condorcet methods that have been enriched with additional information like approval cutoffs, numeric ratings and preference strengths. These enhancements are an interesting area of study but in most cases the basic (pure ranking based) Condorcet methods are good enough and already provide most of the benefits and avoid strategic voting related risks (and are simpler). Juho On Dec 27, 2007, at 5:02 , Kathy Dopp wrote: > On Dec 26, 2007 6:53 PM, Juho Laatu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >> Condocet methods do not put any additional weight on first position >> on the ballot. Vote Gore>Bush>Paul>Nader is considered to be equally >> strong in saying "Gore is better than Bush" than e.g. vote >> Nader>Paul>Gore>Bush. > > Juho, > > Thanks for clarifying. I understand better the method now. So in > Condocet, if you really dislike a particular candidate, it is best as > a voter, to list all the other candidates in order of preference - > except for the one you might dislike the most? > >> >> With votes >> 25: A>E>B=C=D >> 25: B>E>A=C=D >> 25: C>E>A=B=D >> 25: D>E>A=B=C > > I do not get the "=" signs. Do you mean that voters are limited to > listing two candidates in ranked order and that it does not really > matter what they list as their third choice since all third choice > candidates are equal? > >> Condorcet methods elect E (since E would win any of the others 75-25 >> in a pairwise comparison). E didn't have a single first place >> supporter but many obviously considered E to be a good compromise. Is >> this ok to you? > > Yes. I think this Condocet method actually gives a reason for using > ranking with multiple candidates. I think IRV is awful, but this > seems to be OK. > >> >> Condorcet methods simply collect the pairwise preferences from the >> ballots and base the decision on that data (without any potentially >> unfair elimination rounds). > > Yes. This is far fairer and makes more sense to me than IRV. > >> Putting more weight on the first >> preferences is not used, mainly since it would then be more >> problematic to keep the method sufficiently strategy free (=voters >> can now quite safely mark their sincere preferences on the ballot). > > Yes that does seem true - although I have not sat down to really > ponder and study it because I'm working on other things like achieving > verifiably accurate vote counts which I believe are more crucial first > steps. > > It is very important IMO that voters can actually mark their sincere > preferences without having to strategize and hypothesize on what other > voters may do to overcome the flaws of the system like is necessary > with IRV. > > Kathy > >> >> Juho >> >> >> > > > > -- > > Kathy Dopp > > The material expressed herein is the informed product of the author > Kathy Dopp's fact-finding and investigative efforts. Dopp is a > Mathematician, Expert in election audit mathematics and procedures; in > exit poll discrepancy analysis; and can be reached at > > P.O. Box 680192 > Park City, UT 84068 > phone 435-658-4657 > > http://utahcountvotes.org > http://electionmathematics.org > http://electionarchive.org > > History of Confidence Election Auditing Development & Overview of > Election Auditing Fundamentals > http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/History-of- > Election-Auditing-Development.pdf > > Vote Yes on HR811 and S2295 > http://electionmathematics.org/VoteYesHR811.pdf > > Voters Have Reason to Worry > http://utahcountvotes.org/UT/UtahCountVotes-ThadHall-Response.pdf > > "Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body > and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day," wrote > Thomas Jefferson in 1816 > ---- > Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for > list info ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info