[EM] election's utility approach

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

When I asked if the election-utility approach has the sound
motivational principles that the Pij approach has, here's what I meant:

The Pij approach directly addresses how one's utility expectation
is affected by voting for i. The election-utility approach seems
to merely assure us that if we vote for the above-election-utility
candidates, we're going to improve our expectation, by helping candidates 
who are better than what we'd get if we didn't vote.

But is there a demonstration that the voter's expectation is
maximized by voting for all the candidates who are better than
the voter's expectation in the election?

Each of those looks like someone we should vote for, because he's
worth more than the election, when looked at individually. But might
it not be that if one candidate is likely to be in a tie with someone
we like more, voting for him could lower our epectation?

I like the election's-utility approach because that's something
much easier to estimate than all Pij, or even all the Wi. But can
it be shown to maximize the voter's utility expectation?

As for the delta-p method, the delta-p are less fundamental, and
farther from what's estimatable, as compared to the Pij, or especially the
Wi. Estimating the Wi is at least not out of the question. Directly
estimating the delta-p is out of the question. Richard would have to
show a way to calculate estimates of the delta-p, one that makes good
on that freedom from approximation that he spoke of. That method would
have to not use approximations like the assumption that ties will
be 2-way, and would have to not use the Pij to calculate the delta-p.

Richard, what's a precise way to calculate an estimate of the delta-p?

By the way, you left out Crannor's and Hoffman's ways of estimating
the Pij, from the vote totals in a previous election. It seemed to
me that Crannor's descripion of her method didn't give enough information 
about it. If anyone understands Crannor's method, would
they explain it? It sounds good, because it avoids the great
amount of calculation work and complexity of Hoffman's method.

Mike Ossipoff


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