Re: Condorcet Voting and Supermajorities (Re: [CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT] Disambiguation of 4.1.5)
On Fri, Dec 08, 2000 at 04:52:38PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> > Explain to me, again, why the first preference is no more important
> > than the other preferences?
>
> You're mixing and matching what you apply the word "preference" to. The
> option ranked first is more important than the others because the voter
> has expressed that it's preferred to all the others. That is the following
> preferences are expressed:
>
> B > A
> B > S
>
> The option ranked second, however only gets:
>
> A > S
>
> But "A > S" counts just as much as "B > S" or "B > A". "A" however,
> doesn't count as much as "B", because, well, "B > A".
I don't see that you can say "count as much" without assuming a counting
methodology. If you're going to use this argument as an argument for
that methodology you're introducing a circular argument.
The way I see it, first preference is more important to the voter than
the other preferences because, well, the voter rated it as the first
preference.
Introducing a bunch of symbols then saying "well, no, it's not" doesn't
add any information.
I can accept that, in your opinion, the relationships introduced by the
voter's second preference are just as important to the outcome of the
vote as the relationships introduced by the voter's first preference.
The way I see it, the second (etc.) preferences are only to be used when
there's an ambiguity in the cumulative impact of the first preferences.
I'll add: in most cases, these opinions (yours and mine) yield equivalent
results.
> > > Please rate your preferences for the final form of the draft resolution:
> > > [ _ ] P
> > > [ _ ] P+A
> > > [ _ ] P+B
> > > [ _ ] P+A+B
> > > [ _ ] P+A+C
> > > [ _ ] P+B+C
> > > [ _ ] Further Discussion
> > >
> > > Should P be the final form of the draft resolution, please rate your
> > > preferences for its acceptance:
> > > [ _ ] Yes
> > > [ _ ] No
> > > [ _ ] Further Discussion
> > >
> > > Should P+A be the fin...
> > > (etc)
> > This looks like one amendment ballot and six other ballots, one which
> > would be a final ballot, and five which would be neither amendment
> > ballots nor final ballots.
>
> Not exactly. It's one amendment ballot and the final ballot repeated six
> times, one for each different form the final form of the draft resolution
> can take so that each voter can "vote differently in the final ballot
> for each of the possible forms of the final draft resolution".
Eh? You're saying this is a single final ballot?
That's not one ballot, it's six.
> > Also.. the constitution does specify that the user be able to vote
> > differently >>in the final ballot<< for each of the forms of final draft
> > resolution. You're only allowing the user to vote on one form of the
> > final draft resolution in the final ballot.
>
> *Oh*, is that how you're reading this?
>
> You seem to be saying that should be read as:
>
> ``In the final ballot, each voter must be able to vote for each of
> the possible forms of the final draft resolution.''
>
> whereas I'm saying it should be read as, ummm:
>
> ``If the amendment and final ballots are combined, then there are
> multiple forms of the final resolution that are possible. For
> each of these, each voter must be able to express a *different*
> preference for the options in the final vote (the Y/N/F one),
> even though it won't be clear which of these preferences will
> be used when the voter votes.''
>
> Can you see how I'm breaking that clause up to read it that way?
To some degree. Can you see that my interpretation is a whole lot
simpler?
[To me, my interpretation seems a whole lot less convoluted than this
business of "It's one final ballot if you squint your eyes this way,
even though it's six ballots if you look at it with your eyes wide open".]
> You seem to be joing the ``to vote'' with the ``for each'' to make
> it ``to vote for'', while I'm treating ``vote differently'' to stand
> alone, and the ``for each'' to mean they get to ``vote'' many times,
> each of which may well be ``different'', and what you're voting for or
> against is only mentioned in the previous clause.
Um.. ok, you can describe the way I'm reading "to vote for each" as "'to'
'vote for' 'each'". [Or, as "'to vote' 'for each'".]
However, although my interpretation allows "to vote for each" to be taken
as "to vote differently for each", I still don't really understand...
Well, let me just ask you this: Do you still think that my interpretation
of this clause is incorrect. [Pretend I'm not a debian developer --
I'm asking if you still think that you have some valid criticism of that
interpretation of A.3(3).]
--
Raul
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