James G-A replying to Ted, on the subject of AWP and DMC... > > >I agree that AWP (have you decided to pick between RP, Beatpath or >River?)
No, I haven't chosen, nor do I feel the need to choose. I consider all three of these base methods to be very good, and I see no particular reason to limit the definition of CWP or AWP by choosing one over the other. >does a better job in this particular case, and all else being >equal, I would be happy with an AWP proposal. > >But all things are not equal. How do you explain to your 80 year old >auntie about ordering the defeats, or that RP sometimes gets a >different result than Beatpath or River? If you can show that AWP >always causes the 3 strong pair-ranking methods to get the same >answer, I would be convinced. This doesn't make sense to me. Are you saying for example that people will look askance at beatpath if they know ranked pairs to be equally good, and that they will look askance at ranked pairs if they know beatpath to be equally good? I doubt it. I think that all three methods are about equally good. If we pick beatpath, people who like ranked pairs are likely to be happy, and vice versa. Also, if the proposal is based on ranked pairs, and I am trying to explain the method to someone who is not comfortable with complex voting theory, I have no need to explain beatpath and river to them. All I have to do is explain ranked pairs. > >Until then, I think DMC or some variant is the Condorcet method with >best chance of public acceptance. That's your opinion. My opinion is that if DMC and AWP are roughly equal in explainability, and that any method that combines some other ballot with a ranking ballot will be more difficult from a superficial standpoint than a method like sequential dropping (wv). Hence, if such superficial considerations are intense, both DMC and AWP are likely to be beyond reach. If the public is open to more complex methods, they are just about as likely to entertain one method as the other. Once we've reached that point, the important question is which method offers more benefits as an organizing/decision-making tool. I continue to argue that AWP should be chosen over DMC because it provides substantially more stability against tactical voting. If we are ever able to do some serious focus group research comparing ordinary people's reaction to the different methods, while treating each one fairly, and it turns out that DMC does substantially better, I will accept your public acceptability argument. Until then, I suggest that my opinion on the relative public acceptability of the methods is as valid as yours, and that further discussion should focus on the relative merits of the methods in practice. > >In any case, my general comment about strategy not existing in a >vacuum still applies here: though Bush does win under DMC using your >proposed strategy, it is very risky. What if 3 of the 5 D>>K>B voters >move their cutoff below K? Yes, they would be compromising, but in >approval and not in rank. B voters attempting to "game" DMC are >gambling on how important that approval cutoff decision will be, and >could end up with a Dean victory for their efforts. > That's always the price of the burying strategy. If your sincere is B>K>D and you vote B>D>K to increase B's chance of winning, the downside is that you usually increase D's chance of winning as well. However, let's say that we have a large group of voters whose sincere preferences are B>>>>>>>>>D>K. That is, they prefer D slightly over K, but they don't really care, but they passionately prefer B over both D and K. (This is totally realistic in polarized political landscapes like the USA.) I suggest that such voters are likely to decide which candidate (D or K) is most likely to beat B pairwise, and to vote that candidate in last place. If the strategy backfires, and D is elected instead of the sincere winner K, then they haven't lost much. However, if the strategy succeeds, and B wins instead of K, they have gained a great deal. Hence, the burying strategy is an obvious choice, without the need for any coordination. This is exactly where CWP and AWP step in. I suggest that the most important kind of burying strategy to guard against is the kind where people try to change the result to a winner who is the ideological polar opposite of everyone in the Smith set. (First, because it is a more severe violation of the process, and second, because the buriers are more likely to have a lot to gain and not much to lose, as explained above.) In CWP and AWP this is always either impossible or absurdly complicated. In DMC, it is often possible and sometimes simple. So to me, the choice is clear. Please consider this argument seriously and read my CWP paper before you make any further pronouncements about the differences (or similarities) in merit between AWP and DMC, because most of the pro-CWP arguments apply to AWP as well, to a large degree. http://fc.antioch.edu/~james_green-armytage/cwp13.htm Sincerely, James Green-Armytage ---- Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info