[EM] Student government - what voting system to recommend?

[Howard Swerdfeger]

Juho wrote:
> On Apr 23, 2007, at 17:40 , Howard Swerdfeger wrote:
> 
>>> Range is expressive and it is able to treat these two different  
>>> types  of "Pro Wrestlers" differently. Its problem is that it in  
>>> practice  easily becomes Approval (only min and max values used)  
>>> in competitive  elections.
>> does it?
>> I have seen arguments stating that a knowledgeable voter would  
>> alter there preferences in this manner. But I am unsure if this  
>> would happen in the reality of a large scale (>10^5 voters) election.
> 
> Let's say that in the U.S. presidential elections roughly 48% of the  
> voters vote D=9, R=7, PW=1 and roughly 48% vote R=9, D=7, PW=1.  
> Either D or R wins. In the next elections the Democrats notice the  
> possibility of strategic voting and advice their supporters to vote  
> D=9, R=0, PW=0. In these elections Democrats win. In the third  
> elections Republicans have learned a lesson and now recommend their  
> voters to vote R=9, D=0, PW=0. Now the election is in balance again,  
> but the method has in practice reduced to Approval (actually  
> Plurality in this example).

I agree with the basic math of optimization. But, I still question its 
application to voter intent.


> This strategy doesn't require the voters be rocket scientists.  
> Probably the strategies would not spread as described above. Maybe  
> there just would be discussions between voters and in the media and  
> all parties would be impacted in roughly same speed. In competitive  
> elections it is quite possible that majority of voters would not stay  
> "sincere" but would vote in Approval style. Once strategic voting  
> becomes wide enough to be meaningful to the end result, voting  
> sincerely could be commonly seen as "donating the victory to the  
> strategists". A key property of this evolution process is that those  
> parties and individuals that are strategic will have more voting  
> power than others (this breaks the possible balance of having same  
> percentage of strategic voters in each party).

I agree strategic voters will have more power.

> I think the size of the election doesn't influence much on if voters  
> become strategic. I think it is more like a balance of media / yellow  
> press interest, strength of rumours, overall requirement of "good  

you are  probably correct.
It might depend on Other values, also.
Specifically I feel it might depend largely on the perceived 
effectiveness honest voting.
In America there is a culture of voting for one of the duopoly because 
in voting for anybody else there is a perceived (and actual) lack of 
effectiveness.

However in Many other Countries, Canada, France, Germany....Votes are 
given to many different parties in large numbers. I believe that this is 
because there is often actual/perceived (opposition parties, 2nd round) 
reward for voting the 3rd or 4th party.


In retrospect I might guess that there would be an a direct relationship 
between number of voters and chance that the election would degrade to 
approval.


In US style Presidential elections where there is 10^8 voters there 
would be little reward changing your ranking away from the party suggested
Dem = 1
Rep = 0
Nader = 0
PW = 0
But with smaller number of voters (10^4 -> 10^5, ie parliamentary 
system ) average voter opinion would change much quicker (noise) and you 
might see results (more MP's) within 1 or 2 elections, voting true 
preference.

Your perceived reward for honest voting then goes up. and you are more 
likely to vote honestly.


anyway, (side tracking for a moment) I am mainly of the opinion that 
very large elections should not be conducted in a single winner method 
if there is any other possible way.


 > moral" in the society, and (maybe most importantly) the level of
 > competitiveness in the elections in question.

If by competitiveness you mean 2 candidates close in popularity leading 
everybody else.




> 
> Juho
> 
> 
> 
> 		
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