Election reflections

Well, it's not officially finished, but for me it is; the masses spoke, and 4 million more votes came in for George W. Bush than for John Kerry, nationwide. The squabble over a hundred thousand votes in Ohio 'turning the tide' seems petty, especially since I'm willing to bet many of the people pinning their hopes on that EC victory are the same ones who screamed about Gore winning the popular vote in 2000. I know I did; so I can't complain this time about that.

( I *can* complain about some other things, though... )

We got exactly the president we deserved, as a country. We voted for it, now we get to live with it. One thing I *won't* do is quit, or run to Europe or Canada. That would only prove the mob right, that it can intimidate and rule us with an iron will. Nice try, assholes.

Condorcet voting results

Note: I in no way expect this to be an actual commentary on or "alternate version" of the national election. I expected to have the analysis run before Nov. 2nd, but was too busy to actually post it. It's not a scientific sample like a poll; but then, voting is inherently "opt-in" for our country, so I'm not entirely concerned about that either. I was more interested in playing with the mechanics of a Condorcet decision in a real-world scenario.

( So where did the data come from? )

Here's the breakdown in pairwise fashion:

Option	C	D	G	L	N	R	S
Constitution	0	52	53	33	60	76	66
Democratic	121	0	107	99	112	126	135
Green	98	53	0	80	87	108	114
Libertarian	118	79	85	0	97	132	112
Nader, Ralph	92	50	50	65	0	107	99
Republican	65	47	58	33	60	0	68
Socialist	75	27	26	52	44	81	0

Unsurprisingly for the LiveJournal demographic, Kerry/Edwards was the overall winner (yellow 'win' boxes across the line). There was no need for a cyclic ambiguity resolution, as Kerry won in all direct pairings. This is what I think is a clear benefit to the Condorcet system; it unequivocally resolves voter preferences and removes even the effect of 'strategic' voting from the equation. Not voting for your 'lukewarm' choice has *zero* effect on your primary choice's chances, but it can hamper the possibility of your secondary candidate beating someone you really despise, since they get equivalent losses marked down. Voting sincerely benefits you in Condorcet.

This becomes more obvious from the second place finisher: Michael Badnarik of the Libertarian Party. Not GWB, who actually finishes dead last in Condorcet pairing, even behind the Socialists and the Constitution Party. I thought this was bizarre, until I remembered that the Constituion Party is probably what the Republicans currently aspire to: small government with social norms defined by the Bible. Given the choice, people ranked them *almost* equally (look at the 1st and 6th lines of the table, showing their wins), but given the choice between the two, Constitution won 76-65.

( A few more observations )