[EM] error

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

Richard had said:


    If your B vote has a probability k of helping B

...of making B win when he wouldn't otherwise have won?

, it has a probability of
    k/2 of hurting A and a probability k/2 of hurting C (B is just as likely
to be tied with A as with C).

I replied:

But you said yourself it isn't meaningful to talk about how likely
your vote is to change the winner from someone else to B without
saying whether you're voting for that other candidate too.

A is more favored than C is. Two people are voting for A for sure,
now that you're joining the election. It doesn't seem reasonable
to say that voting for B has to equally reduce A's & C's chances of
winning.

I add now:

I forgot that we were talking about the 3001 voter example, rather
than the 4-voter example. But this doesn't really bear on the original
question of whether or not above-mean stratgy is valid with very
few voters. To show that it isn't, a direct demonstration of that
fact would be best.

By the way, Richard, are you aware that IRV is being heavily promoted
around the U.S., and that at least 1 or 2 counties have already
passed "enabling initiatives" for IRV, and that at least one county
has enacted IRV, and that at least one state (Alaska) has an IRV
initiative that has made the ballot (2002), and several other states
are close behind, and that in at least some states the LWV has
recommended IRV, and that an LWV IRV endorsement is about to be
pushed through in California--and that all this debate of Approval
strategy won't mean much if IRV, rather than Approval becomes the
national single-winner reform? I'm just suggesting a re-direction
of energy.

Mike Ossipoff

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