Condorcet Voting System
What is the Condorcet Method?
Condorcet: A Better Election Method: The whole
ElectionMethods.org web site is a mine of information. This page is a must read as an introduction to
condorcet.
Is Condorcet Voting Too Complicated? Of course it is not! At least, it is quite easy with a limited number of well-known candidates. With a large number of candidates, ranking candidates we know next to nothing about can be quite tricky. That's why I propose a
Two Round Voting System.
Anyway, you can read this page to see the interesting things
ElectionMethods.org has to say about it.
Second Choice Voting gives another simple and concise introduction to
condorcet voting. What I particularly like in this page is the graphics used to express how
condorcet is fairer. The bell curve shows that it is indeed the candidate with the most popular policies who should win, and not the candidate who would have won in
plurality voting.
How are the votes counted?
In the phpBB Alternative Voting MOD used in the Agora, the winner is computed according to the Cloneproof Condorcet SSD (Schwartz Sequential Dropping) voting algorithm. See below for details
Condorcet Voting Explained: shows the Basic Condorcet and the Schwartz Sequential Dropping (SSD) procedure to determine the winner. There are also links providing further information on
the difference between counting winning votes or the margin or defeat and
other Condorcet Variations.
Ranked Pair procedure: this algorythm is not the one used in the
Agora. This page is worth a look because it provides links to 4 descriptive examples with nice graphics that may help people understand what the algorythm actually means.
Example 1 is worth a look. I explains with simple and clear graghics how votes are added in the matrix and how the matrix is then used to determine the winner.
Some definitions
Truncate vote
Condorcet usually requires voters to rank their preferences from the first to the last candidate. However, especially when the number of candidates is fairly high, voters could be allowed to list only the first few preferences, leaving out all the disliked candidates. When the voters don't rank all the candidates, it is said they truncate their votes.
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