[EM] Strategy definitions & sincere CW (was SARC definition improvement)

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

>A FPP supporter will claim that the FPP winner is the best guess for
>best candidate. A Borda supporter will claim that the Borda winner
>is the best guess for best candidate. A IRV supporter will claim
>that the IRV winner is the best guess for best candidate.

Well, I've always said that standards are relative. But I don't
carry it to the point of not advocating any criteria or voting
systems or saying that some voting systems are better than others,
with the understanding that that statement is true for people
who agree with me about the importance of the main standards.

>
>When you now say that a sincere Condorcet winner is a rightful
>winner and that therefore a strategy to elect a sincere Condorcet
>winner is defensive (even if the used election method doesn't meet
>the Condorcet criterion) and should never be punished, then you
>judge the heuristic of one election method by demonstrating that
>if you use the heuristic of another election method then this
>election method behaves wrongfully.

That isn't really correct. I'm not using the Condorcet Criterion,
because, as usually defined, that criterion says that the candidate
who actually beats everyone pairwise, by the actual ballots, should
win. I'm saying that the candidate who is _preferred_ to each
one of the other candidates, when compared separately to each one
of them, by more people than vice-versa, should win. That's why
I emphasized _sincere_ CW.

Still, you might say that it's just a prejudice of mine that the
candidate that the people prefer to each one of the others should
win. Ok. Then what I'm saying, when I use the sincere CW in a
definition of offensive or defensive strategy, is that that
definition makes sense, I claim, for those who agree with me that
there's something right when the SCW wins, and something wrong
when he/she doesn't win. Or at least that it's desirable that the
SCW win.

>
>It is clear that you must not criticize election method X for not
>being election method Y. When the supporters of a given election

The idea that it's better if the SCW wins isn't an election method.

So I don't criticize FPP & IRV for not being some other method,
only for doing what many of us don't like. The idea that it's
desirable for the SCW to win, that his win is the natural result,
is so widespread among people who discuss voting systems, that
it seems acceptable to include the SCW in a definition of offensive
or defensive strategy, with the understanding that people who
don't agree about the SCW are free to not accept those definitions.

Incidentally, Riker showed that, if everyone votes in their own
interest, with respect the the election that they're voting in,
and if everyone knows eachother's preferences (or eachother's votes)
then the SCW will win, no matter what the method is. Therefore
I don't agree that mentioning the SCW in those definitions favors
any method. There's something fundamentally natural about the
SCW winning--He/she will win if people vote in their own interest
and have complete information about eachother.

Mike


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