So much for Blake's claim that Condorcet didn't consider incomplete rankings. We covered this some time ago, but Blake repeated his refuted statement again. >Blake Cretney wrote (1 Apr 2001): > > I argued that since no one had come up with an example where Condorcet > > had considered incomplete rankings, he hadn't. The Condorcet translation that Markus quoted says: > However, it is not necessary for everyone to compare >all the candidates or to form a complete list. A voter may >for various reasons regard a certain number of candidates >as equal to one another, either after considering their >attributes or because he does not know the candidates and >is therefore unable, or unwilling, to judge them. > This condition in no way restricts the voters' freedom, >since it simply requires everyone to decide which candidates >he wishes to choose between. The list of all those put >forward in this way would then present each voter with the >names of all the candidates between whom the other voters >wanted the election to be conducted, and he would then >have complete freedom to decide how he could share in this >judgement: which candidates he wanted to rank in order of >merit and which to reject entirely by placing them after >all the others. > Any election method in which the votes given are >incomplete will produce results which contradict the will >which the majority would have had if complete votes had >been collected. > The results of these incomplete votes will of course have >some degree of probability of being correct, but it would be >similar to that of a proposition which has been only half >examined. In fact, we should support a probable proposition >only when we have discovered the impossibility of >incorporating new information, and as long as this >impossibility lasts. > However, we would be just as far from fulfilling our aim >if we forced each voter to express, not the complete vote >which he actually forms, but a complete vote in an absolute >sense; that is, if we forced him to establish an order of >preference between all the candidates, including those he >does not know. Clearly, he would then rank the latter at >random and his vote could result in the election of a >candidate who would not otherwise have had sufficient >support. In the first case, we are neglecting judgements >which should have been assessed, and in the second, we are >assessing judgements which have not been given. In the first >case, we are acting as if we had randomly excluded a certain >number of voters, and in the second as if we were randomly >giving some of them double the number of votes. > In theory, therefore an election procedure should be as >follows: after having determined the list of acceptable >candidates, each voter should express his complete will, >whether of preference or indifference. > A table of majority judgements between the candidates >taken two by two would then be formed and the result - the >order of merit in which they are placed by the majority - >extracted from it. If these judgements could not all exist >together, then those with the smallest majority would be >rejected. > This is exactly the same procedure as that followed by >any individual who wants to make a considered choice by >using a general, regular method which applies to all >situations. > Since there is only one way of obtaining a true decision, >the procedures used by a deliberative assembly should be as >close as possible to those used when an individual examines >a question for himself. > This principle can have other important applications. In >this case, it allows us to develop an election method which >is reasonably natural and as perfect as the nature of things >permits. ****** The term "majority / majorite" (instead of the usually used term "plurality / pluralite") is also used in the French original of this paper. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com