While I agree that "core support" is not always well measured by first choices (multiple clones can make all these clones appear to have little "core" support, where any of them would appear to have massive core support running alone). However, I think the concept of "core support" is still an important factor in multi-candidate elections. While I think Condorcet methods are much better than most methods, I remain concerned that it may, in fact, reward inoffensive candidates who successfully hide their policy positions, rather than just true "compromise" candidates. Voters tend to have clear opinions of candidates at the top and bottom of their preference rankings, leaving the door open for inoffensive candidates who have avoided revealing any controversial views, to become EVERY voter's second choice ("at least he must be better than X") and likely Condorcet winner. The voting method will cause candidates to tailor their campaigns accordingly, and I fear Condorcet encourages candidates to limit voter information and instead campaign with slogans like "I am the candidate who listen to you" and policy will become even LESS discussed in campaigns than is already the case in the U.S.
So an important caveat to the assertion that "if a majority prefers Brad over Carter, this preference exists whether the voting system does anything with it"...is that the voting method in use will affect candidate behavior, and thus may result in Brad NOT being actually preferred over Carter under a different voting method. In other words, voter preferences among candidates (whether scores, or rankings) are not actually "given," as we assume when working out models (A>B>C), but will change depending on what campaign style is rewarded by the voting method in use. Terry Bouricius ----- Original Message ----- From: "Aaron Armitage" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <election-methods@lists.electorama.com> Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2008 2:45 PM Subject: Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting --- On Sun, 7/27/08, James Gilmour <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > That is a consequence of your interpretation of how the > voting system is supposed to work and what the voting > system is supposed to > be doing. But that's not what IRV is about. As I said > in the previous message, the origins of IRV are in the > Exhaustive Ballot, > and in the Exhaustive Ballot there is no possibility of > looking "at the entire ballot". IRV is not about > satisfying a set of > criteria derived from social choice philosophy. > Of course every reason you might offer for choosing one system over another is based on an idea of what a reasonable decision rule for making collective decisions in very large groups should look like. This is true for IRV advocate no less than advocates for other systems; where the system came from is beside the point, especially since most jurisdictions have never used the Exhaustive Ballot. In an important respect, Condorcet is more natural than IRV: if a majority prefers Brad over Carter, this preference exists whether the voting system does anything with it, or even elicits enough information to determine that it exists. Condorcet simply discovers and applies this preference. IRV, on the other hand, elicits enough information to discover it exists, but may decide to ignore it based purely on procedural grounds. There are no good reasons for this, ever. "Core support" is a bogus reason: every time IRV chooses someone other than the plurality winner you're letting an overall majority trump a comparison of core supporters. But other times IRV will fail to do this, for reasons that simply don't exist apart from the system itself. ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info