At 5:34 PM +0000 1/23/04, James Gilmour wrote:
Eric asked:
> Why do you believe that the first place preferences matter more
then the middle or final preferences? What is the basis for
this assumption?
Unless you ask the voters specifically you cannot know,
Quite true. I would liken it to the Heisenberg Uncertainty
Principle for elections. You can either find out what the voters
believe the utility of the candidates are or you can ask them to
elect one. Attempting to do one changes the result of the other.
Consider a Borda election in which a candidate, with a majority
of the first preference votes is defeated. I think most voters
would intuitively consider such a result to be "wrong".
Those immersed in social choice theory may argue that such voters
have been brainwashed by decades of exposure to plurality voting
systems and need to be educated to see the one true light. But I
know from experience what the intuitive reaction of most voters
is. On that basis I think we can say that first place
preferences do matter more than later preferences.
Consider the case of a polarizing issue, such as Abortion. To
those on either side, their last place vote will matter just as
much as their first place vote. Even their middle preferences
will matter greatly as it puts a buffer between the viewpoint
they agree with and the viewpoint the simply hate.
--
== Eric Gorr ========= http://www.ericgorr.net ========= ICQ:9293199 ===
"Therefore the considerations of the intelligent always include both
benefit and harm." - Sun Tzu
== Insults, like violence, are the last refuge of the incompetent... ===
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