At 05:04 AM 4/12/2010, Juho wrote:
The end result is also very unstable if B and C are about equally strong since then both could claim to be the leading candidate within the left wing and both recommend truncation (=> A may win). Some supporters of both of them may truncate for any of the reasons (attack, defence, revenge).
Factions in an election are quite likely to follow the public recommendations of their candidate. Nader claimed that Gore and Bush were Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Did his supporters follow that idea to its conclusion?
One point should be made clear: any candidate who recommends that voters not vote sincerely is probably shooting himself or herself in the foot. It isn't a winning strategy, generally, it really looks bad (even if the strategy makes some sense.)
So if B is, say, leading C, but these candidates are really close in preference for the set of B,C supporters, if B attacks C, B will quite likely reduce his or her own support. There will be C supporters who don't like that!
I believe I just showed that WV, if it elects B in the scenario given, and assuming that the votes are sincere, is low-performing. I don't know if the scenario was reasonably possible, and, indeed, it wasn't realistic.
I don't think we want to reform voting to use systems that produce poor results if people vote sincerely!
It is enough that a system does not reward preference reversal, and approval/range systems don't do that. They do reward suppressing minor preferences, while expressing major ones.
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