Margins -- Blake is right -- slight amplification

[Hugh R. Tobin]

Hugh R. Tobin wrote:

> I agree that votes-against does not permit a rational "defensive"
> strategy of truncation; moreover I remain to be convinced that in
> margins  it would ever be rational for a voter to truncate, but not to
> reverse order.  

It may not have been clear enough that the second point relates to a
separate issue from the first, that is, a charge made on this list that
the margins tiebreak allows an "offensive" truncation strategy, which
fails in "votes against".  Such a strategy has no independent
significance because it is only a weaker alternative to order-reversal
strategy, which in the right conditions can work under both methods.

I use "truncation" to refer to omitting to express preferences at the
bottom of one's ballot when one actually holds such preferences.

-- Hugh Tobin