Lesser of evils (was Re: precise definitions)

[Steve Eppley]

Mike O wrote:
-snip-
>The criteria I've been describing here are about the lesser-of-2-evils 
>standard. I'm not saying that standard is important because I say
>so, but because all electoral reformers who are interested in sw
>methods consider it to be the important thing, the serious problem
>that Plurality has, and the reason why a better sw method is needed.
>
>Would you agree with Bruce that the lesser-of-2-evils properties
>have been over-sold?  As I said, Bruce doesn't consider the lesser-
>of-2-evils problem important, which greatly sets him apart from
>electoral reformers.
-snip-

I think that to be fair to Bruce, it's not clear whether he
considers Plurality's LOE problem unimportant.  There are reformers
like Rob Ritchie who care about LOE in Plurality and Runoff but are
comfortable advocating MPV because they don't consider MPV's LOE
problem to be as great as Plurality's LOE problem.  Bruce may be in a 
similar boat, believing that Regular-Champion's LOE problem isn't as 
great as Plurality's.

However, based on Bruce's recent message about LOE, it appears to me
that he doesn't yet grasp the problem we're talking about.  In my
reply to that (which I'm also posting now) I try to explain the
problem in terms of the sacrifice of sincere voting which voters may
opt to do, if manipulation figures to get them a better outcome
(from their perspective) in the election.  Whether or not that
sacrifice changes the result, it's a high price to pay and I'd
prefer a voting method which doesn't contain incentives to sacrifice
sincere expression.  Like Mike's criteria, the standard "Maximize
Sincere Expression" is wrapped up with the LOE dilemma.

Perhaps there's a way for me to describe this standard as an
academically useful criterion, with a name something like 
Resistance to Manipulation?  If so, help would be appreciated.

---Steve     (Steve Eppley    seppley at alumni.caltech.edu)