Ok, Markus, I guess you definitely aren't going to say what you mean by "prefer". And that's ok.
You said:
an election method is a mapping from a given input to a given output. Where this input comes from or what this input actually represents is of no concern as long as it has the properties required by this election method.
I reply:
You can speak of degrees of apple-sweetness instead of pairwise votes if you want to, but then it isn't a voting system. It's an apple-sweetness rating.
The fact that 2 things have the same mathematical form doesn't make them the same. You're talking about something with resemblence to a voting system. If it's apples, then it's a sweeter-apples system. If it's "prefers X to Y" instead of "votes X over Y", then it's a preferring system not a voting system.
Mike Ossipoff
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