230 Methods of Election. 



dorcet's method always shows whether the result is 

 incapable of being proved wrong or not, but the proposed 

 method gives us no information on this point. With the 

 proposed method, however, there is no difficulty in arriving 

 at the result in any case, whereas Condorcet's method is, by 

 his own admission, so complicated as to be quite im- 

 practicable. Condorcet returns the candidate who is 

 superior to the largest number of other candidates, without 

 reference either to the numbers of votes by which the 

 candidate is superior to those other candidates, or to the 

 number of votes by which the candidate is inferior to the 

 remaining candidates. Now in the proposed method both 

 these elements are taken into consideration. Each candidate 

 is, in fact, credited with the numbers of votes by which he 

 beats all candidates he is superior to, and is debited with the 

 numbers of votes by which he is beaten by all candidates 

 he is inferior to. All candidates who have the balance 

 against them are excluded, and the election then proceeds as 

 if the remaining candidates were the only ones eligible. 



It seems clear, then, that the proposed method is quite as 

 rigorous as that of Condorcet. It gives the same result as 

 Condorcet's in the case of three candidates, and it agrees 

 therewith in all cases so far as any conclusion can be drawn 

 from the votes. In those cases in which no valid conclusion 

 can be drawn from the votes the two methods may not 

 agree, and although nothing can be proved one way or 

 another in these cases, the principles on which the proposed 

 method is founded seem quite as sound as those of Condorcet's 

 method. The proposed method has, however, great practical 

 advantages over Condorcet's method, for the process of 

 arriving at the result is the same in all cases ; the operations 

 throughout are of the same kind. The number of numerical 

 results which have to be arrived at is much smaller than in 

 Condorcet's method. For instance, if there be sixteen 

 candidates we should expect, in the long run, to have four 

 scrutinies, involving thirty numerical results, whereas 

 Condorcet's method would require the computation of the 

 votes for and against one hundred and twenty different 

 propositions. When the numerical results are arrived at 

 there is not the slightest difficulty in applying them, 

 whereas in Condorcet's method the rules are very compli- 

 cated. It may be claimed, then, that the proposed method 

 has all the rigour of Condorcet's method and none of its 

 practical difficulties. 



