[EM] Schulze and Margins was: Reversal Software output6/9/1999

[Markus Schulze]

Dear Blake,

I wrote (25 Jun 1999):
> 2. The optimal strategy of a voter who has absolutely no informations
> about the opinions and the voting behaviour of the other voters also
> depends on the absolute preferences (von Neumann-Morgenstern utilities)
> of this voter. In other words: If you want to apply your criterion that
> for a voter who has no informations about the other voters it should be
> a useful strategy to vote sincerely, you have to make assumptions about
> the typical distribution of the absolute preferences of a voter.
> But as you might already know from FPTP, Borda, Approval Voting or IRO,
> the result you will get will depend sensitively on the assumption
> of this distribution of absolute preferences.

Example: For most Condorcet methods, bullet voting is the unique way
to vote that guarantees that a given voter isn't punished for going to the
polls. You only have to assume the absolute preferences of the typical
voter degressive enough and you will get to the conclusion that the
optimal strategy of a voter who has no informations about the opinions
and the voting behaviour of the other voters is to use bullet voting.

Markus Schulze