For the purpose of choosing politicians.
Does “condorcet method” include any method that always chooses the condorcet winner?
There is not always a condorcet winner, so condorcet on its own is not a complete voting system.
(I chose STAR, but RP is close).
IRV is the most well-known alternative system, but isn't actually particularly good.
It is marketed using claims like "It fixes the spoiler effect", "It makes it safe to vote honestly or your true favorite without wasting your vote", etc. But these are not actually true.
It only counts first-choice rankings in each round, which means it suffers from the same type of vote-splitting as FPTP, and can eliminate the most-preferred, highest-approved candidates prematurely.
Its Condorcet Efficiency and Social Utility Efficiency are mediocre, and it suffers from center-squeeze, causing it to be increasingly biased against the most-representative candidates the more there are on the ballot.
@BrunoParga That's not a flaw. You can argue that it shouldn't be used for elections of multiple people, but that's orthogonal to the flaws of the method.
@Snarflak I see what you mean. However, when discussing the merits and flaws of electoral systems for choosing public officials, one should not beg the question that only single-winner systems must be considered (which this question does). In principle, it can always be the case that the best system that can be achieved is a multi-winner one; in fact, it could be the case that, whatever the best system, it must be multi-winner.
I believe these things happen to be true. The extent to which each individual ballot affects the final composition of the elected body must be at equal as possible, given that all citizens are entitled to equal rights. It is easy to imagine how even a Condorcet single-winner method fails terribly at respecting equal rights: imagine an election with three winners, where party A is the Condorcet winner by one vote over party B in two districts and literally everyone in the third district prefers B over A (and all other parties). A gets 2/3 seats from only 1/3 of the votes, and the other way around for B; this means that A voters have 4 times the representation as B voters, which fails the criterion. You can fix this by slightly redistricting one of the A districts with a couple of B voters, but if you do it with both A districts then B wins everything, giving A voters 0 power.
To me, it seems beyond question that everyone's vote should effectively count the same, and it seems really weird that something as arbitrary as lines on a map determine how much, and even whether, you have any actual rights to be represented.
However, when discussing the merits and flaws of electoral systems for choosing public officials
Elections aren't only held for public officials (or even for human beings).
one should not beg the question that only single-winner systems must be considered (which this question does)
No it doesn't. It asks which is your favorite single-winner electoral system. "What's your favorite electoral system? (Multi-winner)" would be a different question.
Compare these debates for example:
https://www.kialo.com/the-us-should-adopt-a-better-voting-system-for-single-winner-elections-4650
https://www.kialo.com/the-us-should-adopt-a-better-voting-system-for-elected-bodies-5589
it can always be the case that the best system that can be achieved is a multi-winner one
Not if you're voting on a single-member office…
the final composition of the elected body
What elected body? This is a question about single-winner elections. You're conflating multiple questions:
What's your favorite single-winner voting system?
What's your favorite proportional multi-winner voting system?
Should a given elected body be elected using a proportional system or not?
@Snarflak there might be academic questions, but I think for practical matters the most important question is: what political structure, including voting methods, should be used to improve the human condition? At least that's the question I am interested in. My focus is on how to improve metrics that are desirable, such as happiness in life, social mobility and life expectancy.
What I see is: countries without single-winner elections for positions of political power generally do better than those that do have these elections.
If you do have single-winner elections, you tend to do better if the main leadership position is not filled by means of such an election.
From the point of view of having elected officials that improve human life, asking "which single-winner method should be used" is kinda like asking "where should you be punched". The correct answer is don't.
@BrunoParga OK, but none of that is relevant to this question, which is about single-winner elections.