I emphasize that I don't know if u/a FBC makes a satisfactory guarantee. With it, FBC must be complied with only if the election is u/a to everyone. So, someone wanting to write a failure-example would have to devise an example in which, for everyone, there are 2 sets of candidates such that hir preferences within the sets are negligibly weak in comparison to hir preference between the sets. And there must not be anything that positively rules out a win in the less-preferred set.
I don't know if satisfying that criterion would guarantee that there couldn't be societally-damaging favorite-burial incentive. I don't know for sure if I could write a really precisely-worded u/a FBC, because I haven't previously written criteria that refer to preference-strength, or in which the premise contains a stipulation that a win in a certain set not be positively ruled out. And I don't know if Smith-Top would pass that criterion. But, as I said, the matter is of interest, because I consider FBC to be important, because of the societal consequences of failing it. If a weaker FBC such as u/a FBC could be sufficient, then more methods would be acceptable. Anyway, Smith-Top means what you'd expect it to mean: Elect the Smith set member who is ranked in 1st place on the most ballots. Smith-Top obviously meets Condorcet's Criterion. Smith-Top would be a method in the spirit of Kristofer's Smith-Approval, but attempting to copy ICT's defection-resistance. Smith-Top is to Smith-Approval as ICT is to ICA. I'm not proposing Smith-Top, for the reasons given above. Kristofer: Let me know if you intended u/a FBC different from how I've described it. Mike Ossipoff
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