Re: Per-item "quorum" and truncated ballots

[Raul Miller <moth@magenta.com>]

On Sat, May 24, 2003 at 07:07:52AM -0400, Buddha Buck wrote:
> So you are saying it is acceptable and desirable for there to be no way 
> to express truely equal preference for "Further Discussion" and some 
> other option?

I just wanted to underline what Anthony Towns said.

Here's a quote from the May 15 draft:

     RATIONALE: Options which the voters rank above the default option
     are options they find acceptable.  Options ranked below the default
     options are options they find unacceptable.

You're discussing an option which a significant number of active voters
neither find acceptable nor unacceptable -- they've explicitly expressed
that they do not care.

Alternatively, if that doesn't seem applicable to you, we've not nailed
down what kind of equality you're looking for, and why it's a good thing.

And, yes, there are bad kinds of equality -- for example those which
require paradox:

  Let's define an election system such that we do not choose between
  options in the schwartz set, but instead every option in the schwartz
  set wins.  Thus, if both Red and Default are in the schwartz set,
  the election default (the results are tossed out) and Red wins (which
  means we keep this result).

[As an aside: if you want a ballot where combinations of options can be
winners, it's best to make those combinations explicit.]

-- 
Raul