--- On Mon, 8/6/09, Raph Frank <raph...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Sun, Jun 7, 2009 at 11:52 PM, Juho > Laatu<juho4...@yahoo.co.uk> > wrote: > > My thinking was that if the question on the > > referendum excludes IRV, then the final outcome > > is anyway likely to be Schulze (and the > > unlikely event of choosing some other one of > > the good Condorcet methods would not be a big > > problem). > > But they could pick the bottom 2 runoff version of IRV, if > all you > want is Condorcet compliance. > > Some possibilities > > "elect the condorcet winner if 1 exists, or the candidate > with the > most first choices otherwise." > > "elect the condorcet winner if 1 exists or the candidate > chosen by the > outgoing PM otherwise". > > It depends on how "evil" the legislators are. >
Yes. Bottom 2 version of IRV is not one of the best Condorcet methods because of the rather random nature of the sequential elimination, but it is Condorcet compatible at least. Since one can not describe the full method in the referendum question one has to take some of these risks in any case. One could try to list all the key characteristics of the Schulze method but still the legislators could decide to take into use ballots that have only two slots in them (if you forgot to include the requirement of having more slots in the referendum question). For these reasons and to make the voters understand the question and to avoid giving too much space for general complexity arguments it may be wise to write the referendum question without all the details that would tie it exactly to the Schulze method. Using e.g. River or Ranked Pairs would probably also not be a catastrophe. So, I tend to think that the best approach would be to use some common language and make the question such that it gives some rough understanding to the voters and at the same time eliminates the worst pitfalls. The risks include e.g. 1) picking some bad method due to not understanding what is good, 2) use of complexity arguments against the Schulze method, 3) incumbents intentionally picking a method that favours them (could be e.g. IRV). I agree with Árpád Magosányi in that one should pay lots of attention on how to formulate the question. I'd however keep most of the complex criteria and requirements out since that gives too much space for speculation and complexity arguments. And as we know one can spend lots of time in arguing about the benefits and problems of most of the criteria (there are arguments for and against all of them, and all methods have some problems that some others do not have, later-no-harm can be used against the Condorcet methods, do we want winning votes or margins for Schulze etc.). I.e. keep it simple and close to what people really understand. If one wants a definite binding to the Schulze method, then one can mention its name in the question (without explaining the details). Juho ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info