[EM] About random election methods

[Russ Paielli]

Andrew,

I think voters will reject any method that isn't deterministic. Barring 
actual numerical ties, why should the selection of the winner depend in 
any way on some random event? Yes, randomness may help thwart strategy, 
but so what? Of course strategy is useless if we toss dice to determine 
the winner. That's just my opinion, of course.

Regards,
Russ

Andrew Myers andru-at-cs.cornell.edu |EMlist| wrote:
> A lot of Condorcet election methods use randomness to elect
> a winner, but in a way that I think voters will find unsatisfactory.
> They simply produce a winner as part of a complex algorithm that
> uses randomness at various points. MAM is an example of such
> an algorithm. A voter might reasonably wonder whether the
> random number generator has been "fixed" to generate the desired
> result.
> 
> It seems to me that it would be more easy to justify the election method if
> it consisted of two phases:
> 
> 1. Deterministically generate a separate probability in [0,1]
>    for a win by each alternative (i.e., no randomness is used).
> 
> 2. Randomly choose among the alternatives according to their
>    respective probabilities. This can be done outside the
>    electronic system to make it completely clear that the
>    procedure is fair.
> 
> You can imagine "lifting" existing algorithms to satisfy this description. For
> example, with MAM you could consider all possible permutations of the ballots.
> Of course, the problem is that this is very expensive.
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> -- Andrew
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