Discussion of voting systems has mostly been about official public elections in the United States. That's why I've emphasised FBC. The strategy situation here is abnormal and pathological, consisting of thoroughly dishonest and disinformational media, and a public who believe whatever those media say. Those pathological conditions make a special demand on the voting system. Ii refer to those U.S. public official election conditions as "current conditions".
But other than for U.S. official public elections, just speaking of voting in general, I make no claim that FBC is necessary. FBC is always desirable, certainly, but not normally necessary. Even without the special situation described in the first paragraph, above, there's a case for FBC. It's just that there's also a case for other advantages instead. Obviously it would be nice if there could be no favorite-burial incentive. The drawback, however, is that, even with the FBC-complying methods, fully protecting a compromise, while top-voting your favorite, requires voting the compromise equal to your favorite. Under different conditions, where voters aren't inclined to do that, there's no need for those FBC complying methods, and that makes some ambitious properties available. Approval and Score, the best proposals for official public elections under U.S. current conditions, would also be fine for general use, in all voting applications. But, when the serious _need_ for FBC isn't present, there are other things that we can ask for. For instance, there's the rank-balloting ideal, the goal of strategy-free-ness. The goal of being able to fully act toward making the winner come from a certain preferred set (which you can do in Approval and Score), while, at the same time, _choosing_ within that preferred set. When voting system reform advocates criticize Approval, they criticize it because that isn't possible with Approval. If you want that rank-balloting ideal for all of the voters, that isn't attainable. But it's attainable for a particular set of voters, an innermost mutual majority (MM). That can be achieved by compliance with the Mutual Majority Criterion (MMC). But MMC loses its meaning if there's a chicken dilemma. Therefore, MMC only has its full power in methods that don't have a chicken dilemma. Such a method is IRV. ...and the various IRV hybrids that i've discussed, under the collective name "IRV etc.", abbreviated IRV&c, or I&c. Without FBC, favorite-burial need, under current conditions, is a certainty, and FBC is essential. But under the different "Green scenario" conditions that I've discussed, voters aren't deceived, for the reasons that I've described in previous posts. Then, even with an I&c method, there's no particular reason for voters to assume that they aren't in a MM. In fact, I suggest that most people will believe that they're in a MM--especially if they actually are. For example, I claim that progressives are a MM. So the situation is entirely different when we don't have thoroughly dishonest disinformational media and a public who believe whatever those media say. Then, we can have much more ambitious goals for the voting system--complete strategy-freeness for an innermost MM. ...and not just in the Green scenario. I claim that this is feasible for any voting other than "current conditions". That includes organizational voting and most polls. I feel that IRV, MM//Benham, and MM//Woodall might be too adversarial for amicable organizations. Benham, Woodall, or maybe AIRV seem better. AIRV, of course, would be easier to handcount. As I said, Approval or Score would be fine. I disagree with FairVote's claim that Approval is only for non-contentous elections. Approval would work fine even when strategy is needed. But when an organization has to vote on a set of very different alternatives, including some that are considerably disliked by some voters, then the I&c methods' strategy-freeness for a MM would be a very nice luxury. Approval or Score might be the more desirable choice when the alternatives are all ok to each voter. Then, Approval's social optimizations are easily available--the election of the alternative that is liked by the most voters, for example. But I emphasize that Approval is still quite adequate even when that isn't so--it's just that, then, the I&c methods provide a tempting luxury. Benham is better than Woodall if brief definition is important. Otherwise, Woodall has the advantage of slightly better social utility. For small organizations, Schwartz Woodall might be better than Woodall, because the Schwartz and Smith sets can differ when there are pairwise-ties. The Schwartz set is more exclusive than the Smith set. You can get into the Smith set by tying one member of it. Not so with the Schwartz set. So, I suggest, for organizational voting, Benham or Schwartz Woodall, depending on whether the members are willing to hear Schwartz Woodall's longer definition. The reason why traditional Condorcet methods like Beatpath would be inadequate is that they have the chicken dilemma, and, when they do, their MMC compliance is meaningless. If the alternatives aren't so different that some of them are repugnant to some voters, then I'd suggest that Approval, or maybe Score, would be better. Michael Ossipoff ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
