Mike Ossipoff wrote: > CR is strategically equiovalent to Approval: In CR, you maximize your expectation by giving maximum points to those candidates for whom you'd vote in Approval, and giving minimum points to the rest.
That's not entirely accurate. It's true that in CR, you maximize your expectation by giving either maximum or minimum points to various candidates -- but *which* candidates you give maximum (minimum) scores might differ from those you'd approve (disapprove) in Approval. The reason is that the actions of sincere voters may differ, depending on whether CR or Approval is used. These sincere voters can end up changing the conditions relevant to strategy decisions. I posted some data demonstrating this (as a link to an excel spreadsheet) in an earlier thread, and Richard Moore provided a more general example of such situations. Here is a link to the thread: http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2004-January/011896.html As Richard also pointed out, in practice this type of information wouldn't be available, so strategic voters would likely vote the same in either case. But I think it's important to note that in principle, strategic equivalence doesn't imply equivalence of probabilities (or of results.) > CR & Approval are excellent, but they don't get rid of defensive strategy need to the degree that Condorcet wv does. I like CR & Approval as well, in particular because Arrow's Impossibility Theorem doesn't apply to them. That means that some variant of these cardinal methods might actually be "perfect." -Bill -- Ralph Nader for US President in 2004 http://votenader.org/ ---- Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
