[EM] Minimizing need for insincerity

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

I'd said:

> > In a reply to Markus I spoke of minimizing need for insincerity.
> > When I say that I want criteria that measure how well a method
> > minimizes need for insincerity, I mean that I'd like to
> > minimize the degree of insincerity needed, and it would be good
> > for that protection to extend to as many voters in as many
> > situations as possible.
>

Then Blake said:

>What these criteria generally represent is the belief that voting a
>less liked alternative over a more liked alternative is an extreme
>unacceptable strategy, but that voting two candidates as equal when
>this is not your belief is hardly a problem at all.

Wrong. SFC & GSFC are about conditions under which some
people, with complying methods, need no strategy at all.

SDSC measures freedom from need to vote equally 2 candidates for
whom one votes.

So it can't be said that the defensive strategy don't recognize
that it would be better not to rank equal 2 candidates one
doesn't consider equal.

That being said:

Strategically needing to vote 2 candidates as equal when you
don't consider them equal is unquestionably not as bad as
strategically needing to _reverse_ a preference ordering. In
fact, in a meaningful sense, the order-reversal is twice as
bad.

But Blake is right when he says that, as regards the social
results of the voting systems, a method that can require you
to vote candidates equal, but doesn't require you to reverse
orderings, is much more than half as good as a method that
won't require you to reverse orderings or vote equal two candidates
whom you don't consider equal.

That's because I believe it means something if people don't
have to abandon their favorite anymore when helping a perceived
needed compromise. For one thing, that means that it takes twice
as many mistaken compromisers to give away an election. For
another thing, support for those compromisers' favorite will no
longer be completely concealed, as it is now.

To me it means a lot to say that, for the first time, everyone
would be feel free to vote for their favorite.

If Blake were closer to the Nader/Gore election he's appreciate
that better.

So, though, by an objective measure, Approval only gets us
halfway to the top, I say that the all-important thing is that
it gets us off the bottom. And I claim that that has value a
lot more than half of the value that the best rank methods would
have.

I want to clarify that some of the criteria only guarantee
that some of the voters, under certain conditions, won't have
to order-reverse to defeat someone, and that FBC only protects
against need for order-reversal involving one's favorite.

>
>The natural result of this way of thinking is that approval is a
>great method.

You got that right.

>In approval, it is rarely practical to vote a less
>liked candidate over a more liked one.  Of course, voting a less
>liked candidate equal to a more liked candidate is inevitable, but as
>I say, Mike tends to view this as a trifling matter.

I've said, and I'll repeat it now, that my favorite methods are
the Condorcet versions, because I consider SFC & GSFC to be
the most ambitious defensive strategy criteria, offering,
under plausible conditions, complete freedom from strategy for
the majority that those criteria refer to.

Also, I just like the luxury of expressing all of my pairwise
prefernces (and having them counted, something that IRV falls far
short of guraranteeing).

So the last clause in Blake's above-quoted paragraph isn't
really correct. "Trifling" isn't accurate, considering that
Condorcet is my favorite method, in terms of which method I'd
enact if it were up to me. But then there's the question of which
is the best public proposal, and that's another issue that I
won't get into here.

>
>Of course, in approval you may theoretically have a reason to vote a
>less over a more liked.

>However, there is never a reason to give an
>approval to your least favourite, or to withhold it from your
>favourite.

WDSC speaks of situations where a majority can make someone lose
without reversing _any_ preference orderings. Approval passes
WDSC.

>So, Mike sees strategies that might defeat the favourite
>candidate as the worst possible.

Yes. Trying to elect your favorite is voting from hope. Trying
to defeat a greater evil, when that won't elect your favorite
is voting from fear. Favoritness is more ambitious. I feel that
it's very important that people not have to abandon their favorites.

Of course it's even better if they never have to vote anyone
equal to their favorite, and that's why I like SDSC, SFC, &
GSFC. And that's why I like Condorcet's method.

>Equal ranking that can have this
>effect is unworthy of comment.

What are you talking about, Blake? What do you think SDSC, SFC,
& GSFC are for?

And with Approval a voter voting an undominated strategy
will never cause his favorite to lose if that wouldn't have
happened had he not voted. I say that because you're saying that
equal ranking that can do that is unworthy of commment, or that
I claim that it is.

Sure, equal ranking can mean that your favorite loses in Approval
where he'd have won if you'd voted only for him. As I said, though,
you aren't voting the compromise over your favorite, but are only
declining to express a preference between them. Therefore it
takes twice as many mistaken compromisers to give away an election,
and you're showing support for your favorite in a way impossible
for compromisers now, with Plurality (or often with IRV).

>Order-reversal that does not have
>this effect is unworthy of comment.

Wrong. WDSC & SDSC are about not having to do _any_ order-reversal.
SFC & GSFC are about not needing any strategy at all.

>But this kind of strategy is
>unforgiveable.

Blake is referring to the unforgivable need for order-reversal
that can defeat one's favorite. I'd have to agree with Blake
that it's undesirable. It would be unforgivable for order-reversal
to be needed in the way that WDSC is about. Doubly unforgivable
because it's so avoidable, with a number of methods, some
quite simple, that pass WDSC. Yes Blake, WDSC failure is
quite unforgivable, when WDSC is met by the simple, modest Approval,
and is also met by all of our Condorcet versions. That's why I
say that WDSC is my basic requirement for an adequate method.
But Approval & Condorcet of course meet other important
criteria too.

>
>Now, I think that a reasonable test would take all these strategies
>and choice limitations into consideration.  That way, a method with a
>lot of the strategies Mike ignores

Blake, if there's a strategy need that I've ignored, won't you
tell me about it?

>wouldn't necessarily be considered
>better than a method with a little of the strategy Mike is concerned
>with.

I don't deny that a great risk of a small violation would have
to be balanced against a small risk of a great violation.

Do you have any examples where we have to make that choice?

As I said in the passage that you quoted, our criteria differ both
in the drasticness of the strategy need against which they protect,
and in what voters are protected from that need. I discussed that
tradeoff. Check it out. In particular, SFC & GSFC protect against
strategy needs that aren't as bad as order-reversl need, but,
in so doing, their coverage is more conditional. And yet I've
told you that Condorcet is my favorite method because of SFC
& GSFC.

So you're way off base when you suggest that I don't value
criteria about protecting against strategy needs less abhorrent
than the need for order-reversal.


>However, criteria like SARC are an all or nothing affair, and
>punish one kind of order-reversal with failure, and accept any amount
>of equal ranking.

Blake, different criteria aren't the same. They're about different
things. We have criteria that protect against _all_ order-reversal
need under the conditions under which it's possible to do so.

We have criteria that protect against the need for equal voting
of candidates voted for when that can be done.

We have criteria that protect against need for any strategy at
all when that can be done.

Obviously the stronger the protection you want, the fewer voters
& situations can be covered.

So these concerns that you bring up are things that we've
dealt with, and which I discuss in the letter to which you
were replying.

I emphasize that I'd be glad for any suggestions that you could
make about how better to protect against need for insincere voting.
I also invite more criteria proposals.

Mike Ossipoff




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