[EM] extending Myerson's test--more policy positions

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

> >
> > David Catchpole wrote:
> > > I'll announce the approval/cumulative voting strategy that I think is
> > > useful for voters with little information about other voters. There 
>are n
> > > candidates. Vote for the n/2 or n/2 + 1 candidates you most prefer.
> > >
> > > Any other suggestions?
> >
> >
> > The proven optimal strategy when no strategy info is available is to
> > vote for candidates for whom the voter gives above-average utilities
>
>As in above-median ;> ? I take it as a basic rule of thumb that the

Maybe I'm answering things already answered, but the average
Bart referred to is the mean. I too should have specified
that in my reply.


>optimal strategy when no strategy info is available, in any game, is
>unrelated to relative magnitudes of utility. If I'm wrong in this case,
>could you direct me to the proof in question?

What do you mean by strategy info? Information about other people's
voting, such as frontrunner probabilities? If so then that
statement is incorrect. Even without that kind of info, Approval
and Plurality still takes utilities into account. Check
Weber's description of Approval strategy in the _Journal of
Economic Perspective_, Winter '95 issue. And Merrill talks about
it too in his book _Making Muliticandidate Elections More
Democratic_. And I demonstrate why Approval strategy is as it
is at http://www.barnsdle.demon.co.uk/vote/sing.html

(note that the 2nd "a" is intentionally left out of barnsdale).


>
> > I wonder what strategy is optimal under a pairwise system?  Should The 
>optimal strategy when no strategy info is available, for a Condorcet
>completion system, is sincere expression of preferences... Anyone dare to
>argue? Huh? I would feel that any additional strategy brought about by
>extra information would depend on the completion.

When nothing is known about CW or median, then maybe one would
want to rank all candidates, or cautiously only rank the
best ones. With most pairwise methods, you might also want to
feel cautious enough to rank a number of the best ones at 1st
place, just to be safe against the others. (but not with Condorcet).



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