On Aug 31, 2008, at 19:52 , Raph Frank wrote:
The true preference order of a voter is A>B>C>D>E>... The voter
expects A to
be elected quite certainly. Candidates B and C are less certain.
The voter
considers B and C to be almost as good as A. Candidates starting
from D are
considerably worse. As a result the voter decides to vote
B>C>A>D>E>...
I think this is the strategy that most parties actually use for vote
management. They never recommend to the voters not to rank a certain
party member.
Yes, the idea of changing the order is the same. The motivation is
different in the sense that an individual voter doesn't necessarily
do this to maximize the seats of a party but to maximize the strength
of this particular vote (to influence which candidates will be
elected within or across parties).
In any case the three clearly best candidates
(A, B, C) will get all possible power of this vote.
Not necessarily. If the popular candidate doesn't get elected, then
some of his personal vote is lost.
Yes, this only guarantees that A, B and C will use the power of the
vote as long as they are in the game. Some particular order of A, B
and C may be more efficient than another. Since this voter counted
all the probabilities the order that he/she chose is the best guess
of what vote is most powerful.
E.g if there are 2 candidates and they get
A1:
0.5 (personal)
0.1 (party)
A2:
0.7 (party)
A1 is eliminated first. A2 gets the 0.1 party vote transferred and
thus has 0.8 quotas and may not got a seat (depends on how much of the
personal vote of A1 stays with the party).
If A1 had been allowed to campaign normally, it might have gone
A1:
0.5 (personal)
0.3 (party)
A2
0.5 (party)
A2 is eliminated and A1 gets 1.3 quotas and thus takes the seat.
If this voter's sincere preferences were A1>A2>... he/she should vote
sincerely. This voter might or might not care about the results of
the A party. The fact that some of the A1 votes may be inherited by
A2 and some A2 votes may be inherited by A1 should have an impact on
the calculations of this candidate.
This generalizes to any preference order, not only to the handling
of the
first favourite.
True, but it is probably not really worth the effort. You would be
estimating the odds on the state of the count after many round.
Adjusting the order of all (numerous) candidates would probably be
quite strongly guesswork. It is however quite possible reposition the
second best candidate when the first favourite has low probability of
becoming elected and the second favourite will be elected almost
certainly.
Juho
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