[EM] Condorcet Criterion for plurality.

MIKE OSSIPOFF nkklrp at hotmail.com
Tue Dec 12 22:15:06 PST 2000



>And Mike wrote:
> >Wait a minute. You said it doesn't matter if they're sincere or
> >not. If so, why are you saying they aren't strategic? If they're
> >not sincere, then might not an insincere ballot be strategic?
>
>Allright, you have a sincere set of preferences, and for every sincere set
>of preferences and voting system, there is at least one sincere vote that
>you can cast (unless you like all candidates the same).  I happen to think
>that truncated votes count as sincere (for a number of reasons).

And as I was saying before, there's a perfectly valid case for that
position. We can say that it's sincere because you're not voting
insincere preferences. Maybe with a little less justification, I
can say that it's less than sincere because you're making it look as
if you don't have a preference when you do. I say it my way because,
as I said, it makes for briefer wording of SFC, GSFC, Condorcet, etc.

So, for me, sincere means "sincere only, and nothing sincere avoidably
left out". Of course that's the kind of sincerity asked for by the
court oath that requires "...the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth". The whole truth of course means the whole truth known
to that witness, just as I only forbid omitting preferences avoidably.

>This poses
>a particular problem, because it means that a Condorcet voting system could
>fail a Condorcet Criteria, if that criteria is based on sincere 
>preferences.

It's not really a problem, because if you define sincerity as you
do, and that doesn't work in your CC definition as you want, then
don't use that sincerity definition in that criterion. Word what you
want to say in some other way that actually does say what you want it
to, instead of stipulating sincerity and using a sincerity definition
that results in a criterion that isn't the one that you want.

As I said, it's for usefulness in criteria that I use the interpretation
of sincerity that I use. The precedent of the court oath backs up
the importance of that meaning for sincerity.

Of course the difference is that an insincere witness is harming
justice for others, while the insincere voter is often avoidably harming
his own best interest.

Mike Ossipoff

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