$0,$1,$10,$100

[Mike Ositoff]

I've just realized that, regarding the strategy for that method
where single votes are free, and large ones are paids for, I
spoke too soon. Of course the free & low-price votes are so much
a better deal that there'd be some incentive to give them to every
candidate with positive strategic value, unless there's a candidate
so strategically important that it's justified to spend much more
money per vote to give him more. 

Also, I was talking about if one had a fixed amount to spend n the
votes, but really the amount that one would spend would depend
on the strategic values. Since that method isn't going to be
adopted anyway, and since its strategy is more complicated than
I thought, maybe it would be better not to try to figure it out.

***

But lest that undermine the credibililty of what I was saying
about strategy for Plurality, Approval, & Cardinal-Measure, 
those statements are all from Robert Weber, Samuel Merrill, &
Gary Cox (but I should say that if you notice an error, it's
probably mine). The assumption that one or more of them mentioned
was just that the probability of two candidates' vote totals being
within a certain distance of eachother is linerly related, and
I suggested here why that could reasonably be expected to likely
be so. It seems to me, however, that only Borda (and probably
$0,$1,$10,$100) needs that assumption to calculate its strategy,
and that Plurality, Approval & Cardinal Measure don't need that
assumption.

***

Maybe, with method I described, in which you pay for how much
your vote benefitted you, an exception to sincere voting would
be that you wouldn't give anything to alternatives with negative
strategic value. I'm sure it's premature to concern oneself with
strategy details of methods that are unlikely to be adopted for
a very long time.

Even if you like a method like that, in which pretty much no one
really loses, because everyone buys what they get, it isn't something
that you can propose for your mayor election any time soon, so
you have reason to be interested in more proposable methods.

And sorry if I've said too much about all this.

Mike Ossipoff