On Apr 8, 2010, at 8:03 PM, Kevin Venzke wrote:
Hi Juho,
--- En date de : Jeu 8.4.10, Juho <juho4...@yahoo.co.uk> a écrit :
I more or less despise the election of A in this
scenario:
49 A
24 B
27 C>B
I believe the possibility of this outcome is a
disincentive for a candidate
like C to run.
There are often vote counts near the edge of some rule applying that
can please/annoy some. IRV is much more able to offer annoying results.
Here a couple less votes for A, or a couple more for B, would have
made a change.
The many B, combined with a high C>B count, is suspect - more like a
construction for a debate than a believable election count.
The story behind these votes seems to be that C is
ideologically close to B and its nomination makes A win
instead of B. If C is ideologically close to B why don't the
"B" voters vote "B>C" (and make C win)?
Because the story is that C is not considered an established candidate
(or a frontrunner), and the B voters (if they actually prefer C, which
is not something I mean to suggest) will not condescend to rank C.
Depending on the method, they could hand the election to C by
ranking C,
and/or alternatively compel C supporters to not vote sincerely.
The best scenario is for C to be able to run, be voted for
sincerely, and
either win, or not affect the outcome at all.
Again, counts near an edge can please or annoy. Supporting the
scenario you describe could result in some other problems.
If C is
ideologically far from B then most "B" voters may vote as
they do now, but then maybe "A" voters should vote "A>B"
(and make B win) (since C seems to be closer to B than A).
It is hard to find an explanation to sincere votes like
this. Or are these maybe strategic votes, e.g. so that
sincere "A>B" voters have decided to vote "A"?
The A voters will not vote A>B because A and B are considered the
frontrunners. (i.e. that is the scenario that concerns me.)
It makes sense for A and B to be enemies. The B/C pattern is the one
that is suspect.
Fundamentally, if I said only one thing: I don't
believe that the margins
ranking of defeat strength (resulting from its
treatment of unranked
candidates) is in agreement with what voters would
expect and want.
What would you consider to be a better approach than
margins for sincere votes? (winning votes has also scenarios
that may be questioned)
Maybe Range? I guess I don't see that question as interesting or
useful.
(Note btw that in another mail I just mentioned also the
possibility of allowing B and C to formally team up so that
defeats within their team would not be considered as severe
as defeats between A and the team.)
This doesn't interest me much (same as Forest's suggestion of pre-
election agreements in DYN) because I'm not interested in the case
that
a single party (for all practical purposes) nominates two candidates.
I don't think that will normally happen or be desirable under any
method. What I'm concerned with is the viability of a "third" option
and
voting for the third option.
Having third parties gives additional opportunity for clones - better
to learn to minimize the damage clones can cause.
It is the ability to vote for more than one, and have difference in
liking be expressible, that puts methods such as Score and Condorcet
ahead of Plurality. While we can talk of making them better, they
start as an improvement.
Dave Ketchum
Kevin Venzke
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