[EM] FWD: Is Salva better than Borda?

[David Catchpole]

Whatha? You've had a maths prof demonstrate that that is clearly not the
case!

On Sat, 17 Apr 1999, Donald E Davison wrote:

>   ------------ 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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> 
>