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PEP 308 vote type (was Re: Update to PEP308: if-then-else expression)

Aahz aahz at pythoncraft.com
Tue Feb 11 11:51:26 EST 2003 
In article <yu994r7aream.fsf at europa.research.att.com>,
Andrew Koenig  <ark at research.att.com> wrote:
>
>Aahz> If I run the voting, and it's a straight "pick between these
>Aahz> alternatives" vote, I'll probably use Condorcet.  OTOH, after taking a
>Aahz> quick look at more web pages, approval voting is easier, so maybe I'll
>Aahz> use that instead.  <shrug>
>
>By approval voting, I assume you mean allowing people to vote for as
>many alternatives as they like.  In which case I'm strongly in favor
>of the idea; I posted another note in this discussion explaining why.

That's almost correct.  "Approval voting" as a term applies to a system
where one can vote YES/NO/ABSTAIN on each of several items.  Condorcet
is one of a series of ranking systems, where one lists items in the
order in which one prefers them.  The problem with all the ranking
systems that I've seen is that there is no way to directly indicate
disapproval.  (This is deadly to IRV, but I don't particularly like that
Condorcet doesn't fix that problem.  The flip side is that ranking
systems generally do well at finding the result that the fewest people
object to even without NO votes.  It is a provable axiom that no voting
system is perfect, BTW.)

>Aahz> Does anyone have actual experience with both Condorcet and approval
>Aahz> voting?  (I'm *not* going to use IRV (aka Australian/Hugo).)
>
>Here's a personal experience with approval voting.

That's interesting, but I really am only interested in answers to my
precise question.
-- 
Aahz (aahz at pythoncraft.com)           <*>         http://www.pythoncraft.com/

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