Breaking a Tie

[Romanar]

MEGO (my eyes glaze over).  To be fair, I'm not at my sharpest right now, but I had trouble figuring it out during this recent election.  It IS a lot more complicated to count than the elections I'm used to.

[Gulliver]

Pod won because more voters ranked him over Dixie in their ballots than voters ranked Sovereign Dixie over PoD in their ballots, and more voters ranked PoD over Soly in their ballots than voters ranked Soly over Pod in their ballots.  From this we conclude that one on one PoD would defeat Dixie and one on one PoD would defeat Soly, making him the Condorcet winner.

Or, another way to say it is that a majority expressed preference for PoD relative to Dixie by ranking him higher than Dixie in their ballots, and a majority likewise expressed preference for PoD over Soly by ranking him higher in their ballots than Soly. As a majority preferred PoD over each other candidate one on one, he was declared the winner.

[Eluvatar]

Er, let's put it more simply.

Most voters ranked PoD over SD, most voters ranked PoD over Soly. And that's all she wrote.

[Gulliver]

She? Regardless, that is the simplest way to state why PoD won. While I'm here though, perhaps an explanation of those nifty matrixes would be enlightening:

	PoD	Soly	SD
PoD	0	17	13
Soly	7	0	7
SD	12	17	0

The matrix above is Left beats Top (that is to say, the Candidates on the left are classed as runners and the candidates on the top are classed as opponents). Thus, each numerical value simply represents the number of ballots cast in which the candidate to the left beat (was ranked higher than) the candidate on the top. So, for example, we can tell that 13 ballots were cast ranking PoD over Dixie. Using this info, we can then determine the winner of any pairwise contest between two candidates. For example, a contest between PoD and Dixie one on one, we can see that 13 voters preferred Pod to Dixie, and 12 preferred Dixie to Pod. As More ranked Pod over Dixe, Pod wins the pairwise contest between him and Dixie. Likewise, he wins the pairwise contest with Soly, and as he beats each other candidate one on one he is the Condorcet winner.

The other table summarizes the final results. The number is the margin of votes between the two candidates in the pairwise contest, with blue numbers representing victory for the candidate at left and red victory for the candidate at the top. As all of the results to the right of PoD are blue, he is the winner. Likewise, all of the results under his name on the top are red.

	PoD	Soly	SD
PoD	0	10	1
Soly	-10	0	-10
SD	-1	10	0

Some spaces are left blank because a candidate cannot run again themselves. That matrix itself is found by simply stacking the individual matrix for each ballot.

[PoD Gunner]

  I needed some private lessons with Prag on IRC to be able to follow and calculate that myself, so it can be done.
For me the point of SD is another: is this system unpopular with the voters? Until now I have heard some saying it was hard to oversee it and match the pairs, but I have seen no complaints. (I think the last was Durnia, with a vague innuendo about the results being faked - a post left unanswered as I type this) . Now, until such complaints are worded, should we start a questioning-poll asking if the Condorcet is unwanted / should be changed? I personally have got used to the thing and would not push for a change.

she didn't say I love you or I'm thinking of you
she didn't say sincerely or I miss you dearly
at the end was just goodbye my friend
just a note
that's all she wrote Howgh.