Dale Sheldon wrote:
Oh, no; listing them in ranked order (even allowing ties) is much, much easier.
I agree.
But from a conceptual standpoint, the two are equivalent. (And it'd be only n*(n-1)/2, since the +s and -s have to be matched and candidates don't compete against themselves.)
But they are not equivalent. A (partial) ordering can be expressed as this set of +/-/0s, but not all such grids can be expressed as a (partial) ordering. While we may end up with cycles that have to be resolved in the guts of the algorithm, I'd rather not allow them to be expressed in a single ballot.
-Dale