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



At 02:23 PM 11-30-2000 -0500, Raul Miller wrote:
> >[third pass]
> >
> >On Thu, Nov 30, 2000 at 02:00:57PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> > > Surely you agree that a minority of people being able to subvert the
> > > resolution procedure to get what they want instead of what the majority
> > > want is a bad thing?
> >
> >I think I agree with your underlying point -- that this kind of
> >discrepancy in the voting system indicates a flaw.

On Thu, Nov 30, 2000 at 02:29:47PM -0500, Buddha Buck wrote:
> This sounds like what the www.electionmethods.com site calls the "Strong 
> Defensive Strategy Criterion":  "If a majority of the voters prefer 
> candidate A to candidate B, then they should have a way of voting that will 
> ensure that B cannot win, without any member of that majority reversing a 
> sincere preference for one candidate over another or insincerely voting two 
> candidates equal."
> 
> >I disagree with your emotional loading (e.g. the use of words like
> >"subvert"), but you still have a valid point.
> 
> Is the wording of the SDSC better?

No.

It's perfectly reasonable to vote for neither (I suppose you could call
this "Candidate C"), and it's perfectly reasonable to vote for a revote
on a different ballot after futher discussion (I suppose you could call
this "Candidate D").  However, Anthony's starting assumption was that
neither of these circumstances were desirable to any of the voters, and
that no one is voting insincerely.  Anyways, insincere voting would be
likely to cause one of these undesirable options to win.

No, the problem Anthony is that the constitution doesn't express
how to have consistent results (between A.3(1)+A.3(2) votes and
A.3(3) votes) if an A.3(1) vote chooses between an option with
an associated supermajority and an option which does not.

Logically, there's three possible resolutions:

[1] Discard the concept of supermajority
[2] Discard the concept of A.3(3) votes
[3] Apply the supermajority voting rules on A.3(1) votes.

I favor [3].  Anthony favors [2], but hasn't entirely dismissed [1].

-- 
Raul



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