Re: Condorcet Voting and Supermajorities (Re: [CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT] Disambiguation of 4.1.5)

[Raul Miller <moth@debian.org>]

At 01:44 AM 11-29-2000 +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> >Why not simply define the terms as they are used by the people who care
> >about these things, and then clearly express the procedure by which ties
> >should be dealt with, rather than defining them out of existance?
> >
> >         A.6(2) An option A is said to Dominate another option B, if
> >                there are more votes which rank option A above option B
> >                than there are votes which rank option B above option A.

On Tue, Nov 28, 2000 at 11:07:28AM -0500, Buddha Buck wrote:
> Can we include a clause here to handle the case where there are an equal 
> number of ballots ranking A above B and B above A?  My opinion is that for 
> the purposes of this procedure, then A would Dominate B, and B would 
> Dominate A, rather than neither dominating each other.

Let's try it this way:

A.6(1)  If the vote has a quorum, this number of ballots are
        cast for the default option (these ballots are in addition to
        those votes cast by people).

A.6(2)	A ballot is said to rank an option A above some other option
	B if votes for option A but not option B, or if it votes for both
	options but assigns a lower cannonical number to option A than
	it does to option B.

A.6(3)  An option A is said to be preferred to another option B,
	if there are more votes which rank option A above option B than
	there are votes which rank option B above option A.

A.6(4)  A supermajority requirement of n:m for an option A, means that
        when votes are considered which indicate option A as a better
        choise than some other option B, the number of votes in favor
        of A are multiplied by m/n.

A.6(5)  The "Smith Set" is the smallest set of options such that
        every option in the set is preferred to every option outside
        the set.

A.6(6)  Any option not in the "Smith Set" is ignored.

A.6(7)  [iteratively] If there are multiple options in the Smith set,
	and one has fewer first preference votes than any other,
	it is ignored, and its second preference votes become first
	preference votes -- ballots which indicate no second preference
	are ignored.  [In case of ties, the person with the casting vote
	will choose.]

A.6(8)  When only one option remains unignored, that option is the winner.



This is very close to the perscription of the current constitution, yet
it eliminates the ambiguities, in what I consider to be a rational fashion.

Thanks,

-- 
Raul