Talk:Borda count

Pro-Borda POV
The section on strategic voting was written with an extremely pro-Borda POV, making unfounded attacks on other voting systems, and unjustified declarations that Borda would solve all the world's problems.

The terminology used was taken from Donald Saari's very POV book, "Chaotic Elections", in which he constructs mathematical models specifically designed for analyzing positional election methods, concludes (correctly) that Borda is the fairest positional election method, but then he tries to apply this model to other ranked methods, and uses the fact that it doesn't fit to conclude that Borda is better than any other election method. He glosses over the strategic flaws in Borda, which are more obvious than the ones he attacks in Approval and Condorcet.

I suspect that the section was written either by a Saari supporter, or someone who has been taken in by his book without looking at the argument critically. I've tried to NPOV the section; let me know if I swung it too far the other way.

An interesting note: Saari and other Borda supporters tend to advocate Instant Borda Runoff when confronted with strategic flaws in Borda, but they claim, approximately, that Instant Borda Runoff is simply a "tallying method" on top of Borda that cleans it up in real-world situations, and allows its excellence to shine through. Yet Instant Borda Runoff turns out to be a Condorcet method, and Saari at least spends chapters on discrediting Condorcet. (My personal opinion is that IBR is indeed better than Borda, but if you're going to do Condorcet, you can do it much more easily than with a boatload of Borda counts.)

RSpeer 17:59, Mar 25, 2005 (UTC)

Criteria for Nanson
Fahrenheit451, you added Nanson's method to the Voting system page saying that it passed certain criteria, and also listed them here. Do you have a source or a proof for these criteria?

I have made some correction to the Nanson section per http://lorrie.cranor.org/pubs/diss/node4.html Fahrenheit451

I am most suspicious of the statement that Nanson's method satisfies the participation criterion. I can't find a source that says specifically whether Nanson passes or fails, but Participation criterion says that "most" Condorcet methods fail. http://fc.antioch.edu/~james_green-armytage/vm/define.htm says that all Condorcet methods fail, but also gives no source or proof.

That is a vanity page with little mathematical rigor.---Fahrenheit451

I'd also want a proof for the defensive strategy criteria; however, I think those just shouldn't be referenced in articles at all, because it's unclear what they say and what constitutes a proof or a counterexample for them. User:MarkusSchulze says that they're not well-defined at all. RSpeer 21:02, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

I just removed them in my last edit and agree with User:MarkusSchulze.

Here is the link on the independence of clones for Nanson's method: http://www.ghg.net/redflame/irv.htm ---Fahrenheit451


 * The participation criterion and the Condorcet criterion are incompatible. This has been proven by Moulin (Hervé Moulin, "Condorcet's Principle Implies the No Show Paradox," Journal of Economic Theory, vol. 45, pp. 53--64, 1988). See here!
 * By the way: Also the consistency criterion and the Condorcet criterion are incompatible.
 * By the way: Blake Cretney's website says that Nanson also violates independence of clones and monotonicity. Markus Schulze

I am convinced on monotonicity, but not independence of clones. Need to investigate further. ---Fahrenheit451

Criticizing ICC in the article text is off-topic
I've removed the criticism of ICC from the text of this article, not actually because it is F451's own opinion (that is a long hard battle to fight), but because it's off-topic. If that criticism belonged here, it would belong on every voting system article.

Fahrenheit451, the proper way for you to add this commentary to Wikipedia would be to make your case on the Talk:Strategic nomination page, get a consensus for it, and add it to the strategic nomination article. RSpeer 05:02, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)

Treatment of truncation

 * Another way, called the modified Borda count, is to assign the points up to k-1, where k is the number of candidates ranked on a ballot. For example, in the modified Borda count, a ballot that ranks candidate A first and candidate B second, leaving everyone else unranked, would give 2 points to A and 1 point to B. This variant would not satisfy the Plurality criterion.

It's true, that this doesn't satisfy Plurality. Incidentally, this isn't the variation I had in mind when I edited Plurality criterion, though. I'll give an example to illustrate:

51 A 50 B>C

In the variant that satisfies Plurality, A receives 102 points, B receives 100, and C receives 50.

Using the quoted method, A receives 51 points, B receives 100, and C receives 50.

The method I had in mind was to give A 102 points, but then B and C would split the 51 points that could have gone to one of them. Then B receives 100+25.5 points, and C receives 50+25.5. KVenzke 20:48, August 10, 2005 (UTC)


 * The third way is to employ a uniformly truncated ballot obliging the voter to rank a certain number of candidates, while not ranking the remainder, who all receive 0 points. This variant would satisfy the Plurality criterion.

In my opinion, this (as well as strictly-ranked Borda) violates the "spirit" of the Plurality criterion, since a voter might be compelled to rank randomly when he would prefer to just truncate. Then a candidate could win due to these random rankings. KVenzke 20:06, August 29, 2005 (UTC)

As a consensual method
Since other editors are actively looking at this page I took the bull by the horns and deleted the section on ‘Borda as a consensual method’. Really it was no more than Chinese whispers. It said that ‘The Borda count tends to favor candidates supported by a broad consensus’ but justified this by a reference which said that ‘Borda count is sometimes described as a consensus-based voting system’ without endorsing the claim or suggesting that the people who made it were in any way authoritative.

In fact the claim is certainly made, eg. by the Electoral Reform Society, but the ERS is comparing Borda with less sophisticated systems such as FPTP. Wikipedia puts all sorts of systems into the mix such as Schulze’s, and the statement on Wikipedia that Borda is particularly consensual will be understood as implying that it is consensual in comparison with them rather than in comparison with the ERS alternatives.

In any case the example was unconvincing and gave rise to a lot of editorial hand-wringing on my part. Colin.champion (talk) 07:54, 28 May 2021 (UTC)


 * @Colin.champion I'm here because I've found multiple references of consensus voting on consensus decision-making, which all seem to be referring to MBC! It seems that Designing an All-Inclusive Democracy: Consensual Voting Procedures for Use in Parliaments, Councils and Committees Emerson 2007 is guilty for coining the term, and I see it is reused in framework called 'CrowdWise' https://rhizomenetwork.wordpress.com/2011/06/02/near-consensus-alternatives-crowd-wise/ DougInAMug talk 23:15, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Oh guess what, a certain Mr Emerson is responsible for those appearances of "consensus voting" https://xtools.wmflabs.org/topedits/en.wikipedia.org/Peter_Emerson/0/Consensus_decision-making DougInAMug talk 23:50, 30 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Yes, I think it’s best to treat statements that a voting method is consensual with a pinch of salt. The debate between voting theorists is not over whether systems should be consensual, but over which systems have this property. Someone who calls the MBC consensual is either comparing it with procedures which are not conventional voting methods (eg. shouting down), or – if he’s comparing it (eg.) with Condorcet methods – using pseudo-objective language to say that he thinks it’s better. Colin.champion (talk) 07:42, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Article is Incorrect
This article claims the Borda Count Method applies 1 point to the most preferred candidate, 2 points to the second most preferred candidate, and so on. This is not correct. The Borda Count Method applies 1 point to the voter's least preferred candidate, 2 points to the second least preferred candidate, and so on. If you did it the way this article suggests, you would be wrong every time. It stands to reason that more points should go to the most preferred candidate, not the least. Considering the most points wins, allowing the least preferred candidate to win makes no sense. 47.232.60.12 (talk) 00:55, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Which section states this? I couldn't find what you were describing anywhere. DougInAMug talk 15:32, 17 September 2022 (UTC)