[EM] SARC definition improvement

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

Markus wrote:

>In the website http://home.pacbell.net/paielli/voting you introduce
>7 criteria. 2 of the 7 criteria are violated by Condorcet methods.

Yes, no method meets every criterion. Some of the best methods
fail criteria met by others of the best methods.

>
>4 of the 5 remaining criteria are motivated by the opinion that
>if a majority of the voters strictly prefers candidate A to candidate
>B then rather candidate A than candidate B should be elected resp.
>then there should be a way of voting with certain properties that
>will ensure that B cannot win.

But nothing was said about A winning.

>
>The problem is that these 4 criteria (SFC, GSFC, WDSC, SDSC) are so
>similar that a reader either considers all 4 to be important or all
>4 to be unimportant.

That's hardly a serious criticism of them. I agree that they're
all majority defensive strategy criteria. As you said, people who
value the main standards will like those criteria, and people
who don't value the mains standards will reject all of them.

The main standards are majority rule and getting rid of the
lesser-of-2-evils problem. So called because of their widespread
acceptance.

>
>A reader who thinks that the fact that a majority of the voters
>strictly prefers A to B has no important meaning will simply reject
>all 4 criteria simultaneously.

Sure, but you'd be surprised how many people value majority rule.

Anyway, a majority can get what it wants anyway, and I just want
to minimize its need for insincere voting.

> > Markus means that, according to his theory, there's no theoretical
> > justification. If Markus could get past his theory, maybe he'd be
> > more in touch with what's important to voters.
>
>Can you name ANY scientist who promotes criteria that protect
>insincere voters?

Excuse me, did I say you weren't in touch with political scientists?
No, I said you aren't in touch with voters' concerns.

Aside from that:

1) I'm more interested in avoiding voters'
need for insincerity than in copying scientists

2) There's a tendency to worship scientists, but social scientists,
including political scientists really must be judged on an
individual basis: If you find what they say valuable, then they're
valuable. If not, maybe they're not.

3) I don't agree that I want to protect insincere voters.
There's not much that can be done to protect insincere voters from
the possible consequences of their insincerity. My criteria
are intended to reduce need for insincere voting. The majority
defensive strategy are intended to reduce that need for majorities.
That limitation of who is benefited allows more sweeping guarantees,
within that limitation. SARC doesn't protect voters when they
vote insincerely--it protects them by keeping them from having
reason to vote insincerely.

4) Has any scientist suggested that it would be better if there's
less incentive to vote insincerely? Yes, I believe I've heard
that from scientists.


>
>You wrote (9 Sep 2000):
> > Markus says that sincere voting should be rewarded.
>
>No. I only say that sincere voting should not be punished.

Good, because that's what my criteria try to gurarantee, to the
degree that it can be guaranteed. A sincere voter isn't punished
by failing to defeat a greater evil, isn't punished for not
using insincere voting to defeat that greater evil.

That's obvious with SFC, GSFC, WDSC & SDSC. FBC says there
should be no incentive to dump one's favorite. In other words,
never will anyone be punished for not doing so. SARC complying
methods won't have people voting undominated strategies defeat
favorite or elect last choice because those complying methods are
methods that don't give incentive to vote so insincerely as to
risk defeating favorite or electing last choice.

So my criteria protect against punishment of sincere voters to
the extent that that's possible.


>What do you mean with "Markus' theory, whatever it is"? If you
>believe that everything that contradicts your own opinion is
>"Markus' theory, whatever it is" then almost every social scientist
>is a "Schulzeist, whatever it is."

For you to say that something is theoretically unjustified, you
must be implicitly or explicitly referring to some theory. I
don't claim to know what theory that is. Maybe it's what Catchpole
has referred to as the academic orthodoxy.  Really, I'm the wrong
person to ask about that.

It would be advantageous if you
>could name ANY scientist who agrees with your opinion.

1) I'm not interested in copying scientists. I'm interested in
   dealing with method faults that force voters to abandon their
   hopes; call me unscientific.

2) I'm sure that I've heard scientists say that avoiding need
   for insincere voting is a desirable goal.

>The "Weak Defensive Strategy Criterion" says that if a majority of
>all the voters prefers A to B then they should have a way of voting
>that will ensure that B cannot win, without any member of that
>majority voting a less-liked candidate over a more-liked candidate.

Correct.

>If the used election method doesn't meet the Condorcet criterion
>then this way is an insincere way.

If you're asking that my criteria ensure that insincerity will
never be needed, then I'd like to introduce you to 2 gentlemen
named Gibbard & Satterthwaite. WDSC avoids strategic need for
the most drastic form of insincere voting--dumping one's favorite
by voting someone else over him. Or, in general, reversing a sincere
preference.


>Therefore WDSC is either
>superfluous (when the used election method meets the Condorcet
>criterion)

Wrong. For WDSC to be superfluous for Condorcet Criterion complying
methods it would have to be that all Condorcet Criterion complying
methods meet WDSC. That isn't true at all. Condorcet's method,
Schulze's method,
and what we've been calling Simpson-Kramer are the only
Condorcet's Criterion complying methods that I know of that meet
WDSC.

Most Condorcet Criterion
complying methods fail WDSC.


or it guarantees that under certain conditions there
>is a secure way of voting stategically (when the used election
>method doesn't meet the Condorcet criterion).

What you're calling "a secure way of voting strategically", I
call a less insincere strategy. That's why it's more secure:
because it's less insincere.

>
>If the intention of SARC was to protect sincere voters then the
>participation criterion would have been sufficient. But SARC does
>more. SARC also protects all those voters who don't vote dominated
>strategies. And I don't know why a given criterion should protect
>voters who use a certain kind of strategy.

Well, since everyone votes an undominated strategy, that means
that SARC compliance protects everyone from defeating his favorite
or electing his last choice. It does that by protecting against the
need for the degree of insincerity that could have that effect.

>It would be advantageous
>if you could name ANY scientist who thinks that voters who use
>a certain kind of strategy should be protected.

It wouldn't be difficult to find a scientist who says that
it's good to protect voters from need for more insincere
strategy.


>It would be
>advantageous if you could say WHY voters who use a certain kind
>of strategy should be protected.

Why should voters be protected against the need for particularly
insincere strategies? Because you said that it's desirable to
not punish sincere voting, for one thing.


>The reader has to agree
>(1) why those and only those voters who use a non-dominated strategy
>     should be protected by SARC,

Really, Markus, it would be difficult to protect people who vote
dominated strategies.

>(2) why only the favorite candidate should be kept from losing and
>     only the last choice from winning by SARC,

For one thing, electing a last choice or defeating a favorite
are particularly regrettable adverse results. That's why they're
the most preventable. If you'd like SARC to guarantee against
_all_ adverse results, you could write such a criterion, but
it wouldn't be meetable, if it is intended to protect everyone
who votes an undominated strategy.

>(3) why the fact that a majority of the voters strictly prefers A to
>     B has any important meaning,

That's something that I'd never be able to convince you of if
you don't already value majority rule. Majority rule is one of
the main standards, which my majority defensive strategy criteria
measure for. Basic standards can't be justified. Either you agree
with them or you don't.

>(4) why an election method should guarantee the existence of a secure
>     strategy when a candidate with a given property exists.

My criteria guarantee the existence of a less insincere strategy.
You call that a more secure strategy, and I agree that a less
insincere strategy is a more secure one. Why guarantee that?
Again, it comes down to a basic standard, the standard of
getting rid of the lesser-of-2-evils problem, a problem that
forces people to use order-reversing insincere strategy to
protect a greater evil.

Another reason: I believe, and I'm sure many would agree, that
it's socially undesirable for people to be strategically forced
to reverse their preferences, to abandon their favorite. But
you may or may not agree with that. Again, we can't prove to
you that you should agree with out standards.

>
>Steve once wrote that he doesn't consider the particpation criterion
>to be important enough because voters usually don't vote sincerely
>but strategically.

That also brings the Condorcet Criterion's usefulness into question.

>But a criterion that says that a voter should not
>be punished for showing up and voting strategically would have been to
>strict. Therefore Steve and you relaxed this criterion and got SARC.
>
>The question is: From all the possible relaxations of that criterion
>that says that a voter should not be punished for showing up and
>voting strategically, why should we just take SARC?

I'd be interested in any other criteria you could write. I
certainly don't claim to have written all of the possible
defensive strategy criteria (aside from the fact that Steve has
written some of them).

We didn't get SARC by starting with that other criterion and then
relaxing it. We wanted something like the ordinary adverse
results criteria, but something more realistic that doesn't
pretend that everyone votes sincerely. And I repeat that SARC
doesn't protect the more insincere voters. It protects voters
by protecting them from the drastically insincere strategy that
could defeat favorites or elect last choices. The criterion's
definition doesn't explain that, but that's how SARC complying
methods avoid violating SARC--by not forcing the drastically
insincere voting that would violate SARC.

Mike Ossipoff


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