Kevin: I've now realized that my FBC failure scenario works for Stepwise-to-Majority, but not for ABucklin.
So: False alarm. Sorry about that. I myself hadn't fully studied the failure scenario, which is why I didn't, at first, realize that the failure scenario doesn't work for ABucklin. The argument that you stated, for why ABucklin won't fail FBC, sounds entirely convincing. Thanks for posting that argument, and for assisting with my question. Mike Ossipoff
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