Revealing the Majority Winner

David Marsay djmarsay at dera.gov.uk
Wed Nov 11 05:44:43 PST 1998


 Bart Ingles wrote:
.<SNIP>
> As I mentioned in my reply to Blake, when the actual level of support is
> unknown, I tend to assume a lower value rather than the 'more-or-less
> equidistant between top and bottom' value that people seem to infer from
> the rankings.
> 
> In other words, the middle candidate could be only marginally higher
> than the bottom candidate, in which case it seems safer to give more
> weight to the top rank.

Interesting. I tend to take the opposite view.

If we take an economic view of elections and suppose that there are 
three candidates. Suppose that two promote the interests of roughly 
half the population, one is a compromise. Suppose that I expect 
a large 'slice of the cake' with one, a small slice with another, and 
a average slice from the compromise candidate. Then I would prefer 
the compromise candidate because the overall cake should be bigger. 
(More productive economic activity.)

Is this just me?

Dave

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and do not represent the views, policy or understanding of
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