Hello, first of all: the longer I think about all this election stuff, the less I like the ideas of quorum and supermajority. Condorcet voting with Schwartz Sequential Dropping has some good properties, as is explained on the electionmethods.org site.
We modify this scheme by introducing the default option, quorum, and
supermajority. I see that a reason for this is as follows:
On Tue, Oct 22, 2002 at 01:31:41PM -0400, Raul Miller wrote:
> When the majority of voters agree that something should be done, it's
> pretty clear that [1] is better than [2].
> When the majority of voters do not agree that something should be done
> it's pretty clear that [2] is better than [1].
But did anybody do an analysis which good properties of the original
Condorcet voting with Schwartz Sequential Dropping we loose in turn.
I would be very interested in the results of such an analysis.
On Sun, Nov 17, 2002 at 10:57:07AM -0500, Raul Miller wrote:
> A.6 Vote Counting
> [...]
Now I'm happy with 1 and 2 :-)
> 3. To avoid default, an option has a quorum requirement, Q must be
> preferred to the default option by at least Q more voters than
> preferred the default option to it.
Is this proper english? I would have written
"... an option which has a quorum requirement, Q, must ..."
^^^^^ ^
but then I'm no native speaker. The same applies to 4.
More substantial: this is a change with respect to the current
constitution. (A.6.8. states "If a quorum is required, there must be
at least that many votes which prefer the winning option to the
default option.", so there the number of supporters, not the margin,
is important). Is this change intentional? I like the old version
better.
Also note that electionmethods.org's description of Condorcet voting [1]
contains (in a different context, of course) the paragraph
Contrary to intuition, the margin of victory or defeat is
irrelevant [while breaking ties] because dropping or ignoring a
defeat, when necessary, is tantamount to overruling those votes
for the defeat -- and fairness requires that as few votes be
overruled as possible.
So maybe the current constitution's version is closer to Condorcet
voting's spirit?
> 4. To avoid default, an option has a supermajority [...]
This is clear to me, except for my comments above.
> 6. [...]
> i. If only a single option remains in the Schwartz set,
> it is the winner.
I like this new structure with only one exit for wins
instead of the previous two. The new version seems much
clearer to me :-)
> ii. Unless this would eliminate all propositions in the Schwartz
> set, the weakest propositions are eliminated.
> [ Definitions of "weakest proposition", "weaker", and
> "proposition" ]
Could we reverse the order of these definitions? So the reader
would first learn about propositions, then he would learn how
to compare them ("weaker"). After that the definition of
"weakest proposition" would be easier to consume.
> Definition: A proposition (N,K) is weaker than a
> proposition (L,M) if the preference (N,K) is less than
> the preference (L,M).
Careful here: "preference (N,K) is less than the preference (L,M)"
is ambiguous, isn't it? We need to make clear here, that what
counts is not the width of the margin, but the maximum of the two
numbers of votes. To quote again from the electionmethods.org
page:
The magnitude of a defeat is the number of votes cast against the
defeated candidate. For example, in Table 5, D defeated B and got
60 votes against B in doing so, hence the magnitude of the defeat
is 60 votes. Contrary to intuition, the margin of victory or
defeat is irrelevant [... see above ]
Maybe we should write something similar here?
Thank you for all your work with this. I hope my comments help,
Jochen
[1] http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetEx.htm
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