[EM] FWD: Is Salva better than Borda?

[Donald E Davison]

  ------------ Forwarded Letter ------------
From: Salva
Subject: is Salva better than Borda?
Date: Sat, 17 Apr 1999 19:07:50 +0200


What Salva Voting is also good at is to completely eliminate tactical
voting. When people has only a single opportunity to vote they split up in
two: those who tactical vote (ie vote for a candidate that is not his-her
more preferred) and those who are willing to waste their vote (vote for
his-her most preferred although they know it will not obtain
representation). With Salva Voting you can safely vote for your most
preferred candidate, because you know you will have a vote in any case,
cause it is a one-man-one-vote method instead of methods in which
only-some-men-one-vote.

However, Borda count has the same advantages than Salva Voting (no waste of
ballots, no tactical voting, no circular ties, majority can not be defeated,
etc). Can somebody tell some advantage Salva has over Borda or some
disadvantage Borda has and Salva doesn't?

I think Borda count has an important component of arbitrariety in allocating
points to choices. Why should the difference between choices be one point
instead of two points or half a point or 0.1 points or an exponential
progression? I think that depending on how many points are allocated on the
different choices it can arise some sort of tactical voting (people may
alter their wished ranking in order to help lower candidates over
for-sure-will-have-seats candidates, for instance).

Salva Voting has no arbitrary decission involved, And there is no way I can
think of, than can lead somebody using Salva to tactical vote.
SO SALVA IS BETTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!