[EM] Randomized MCA, new weird voting method idea

[Warren Smith]

I'll describe a new voting method.  I'm not sure if it is brilliant
or crazy.  I'm also unsure how to analyse it.

1. Forest Simmons has often advanced the idea of using randomness in voting
methods inspire more voter honesty. ("Lottery methods.")

2. IEVS (my simulator - see http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RangeVoting
if you want news about what IEVS is finding out)
says MCA is one of the best methods.

3. So here is a new idea intended to take advantage of both ideas.
It is a different-than-usual way to use randomness.

Consider the following randomized variant of the "MCA" voting method.
Voters rate each candidate either 1, 2, or 3 (3 is best).
The candidate with the most 3-ratings wins if his number of
3-ratings exceeds X% of the number of voters.
Otherwise, the candidate with the most {2- or 3-ratings} wins.

Here X is chosen randomly and is not known to the voters when casting
their votes.

The point is: if X were some fixed known constant (conventional MCA
method: X=50%), then with a huge number of voters,
it would be virtually certain the election would end in the 1st round,
or virtually certain it would end in the 2nd round. The voters
would get wise to which. Once they knew which round it was going to be,
then the election would really just be an approval-voting election,
and any advantages of the 3-slot over regular 2-slot voting, would
essentially not exist.

However, with X unpredictable, your best voting strategy might just
be NOT merely approval-style voting.
The probability distribution of X could be designed via some feedback
scheme based on past history, to maximize some kind of
quality or honesty or unpredictability measure.

MCA turns out (according to IEVS simulations) to be one of the best
voting methods, and this one might be better.
Well, in fact, with the optimum probability distribution for X
(whatever that might mean - which I'm not sure) it *must* be better?

wds
http://rangevoting.org