[EM] Blake & strategy

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

(Sorry, I forgot the subject title when I copied Blake's message)

Blake said:

The more a voting system allows effective strategy, the more it allows
those who understand the system to get more power than those who do not.
This may be a necessary evil, but it surprises me that you seem to feel
this is actually desirable.

I comment:

I don't think the person to whom you're replying was saying that
complicated strategy is desirable. But I believe he was suggesting
that it doesn't make sense for the journal authors to imply that
it's some kind of a violation when voters vote to maximize their
utility expectation. And many or most methods require strategy
for doing that even if no one is attempting offensive strategy.

The problem isn't that voters in Plurality can succeed in electing
a CW compromise by insincere voting. The problem is the degree of
insincerity that they need in order to do that.

So I think you've missed the point of what you were replying to.

Joe had said:

>'It is the prerogative of the voter to maximize their own utilities,
>whether anybody else thinks they have social value or not. That's
>democracy. We don't try to use voting methods to protect the public
>against the public will. We use voting methods to ascertain the public
>will.

Blake replied:

We clearly use voting systems to protect the public against the will of
individuals. As far as I can see, this is just a continuation of the
same error I mention above.

I comment:

Again, I believe the point was that it doesn't make sense to
regard all strategy as a violation against the voting system,
as the journal-authors tend to do. Instead, strategy intended to
protect the win of a sincere CW, or enforce majority rule, should
require as little insincerity as possible, so that it won't act
against the voter who uses it based on incorrect information.
When a method is better in that way, voters don't suffer so much
when there's inaccurate information.

The goal should be to reduce the _need_ for drastically insincere
defensive strategy, rather than to just try to discourage all
strategy, as many authors seem to want to do, along with those
who read those authors and take them too seriously.

Blake continues:

Most voters seem to view IRV as impossible to manipulate (by strategy as
opposed to sincere votes). So they don't try.

I comment:

Actually that isn't true. Insincerely moving a lesser-evil up to
1st place is common in Australian IRV elections, according to 3
different Australians who I spoke to. One of them had just voted in
that way in the most recent election there.

I assume that, by "manipulation", you mean any insincere voting intended
to affect the outcome in your favor.

Blake continues:

But it's obvious how
approval can be manipulated by expert opinion. People will want to
approve of at least one option they think has a chance. In run-off,
voters will try to avoid wasting their votes in the first round.

I comment:

...just as in IRV it's important to avoid wasting their
vote in the 1st round. In fact, when asked why they insincerely
moved a lesser-evil up to 1st place, people said that it was so as
to not waste their vote. They're right: Sometimes the lesser-evil
will need their 1st place vote to avoid immediate elimination,
and election of those voters' last choice.

Blake continues:

So, it
seems to me that by this standard IRV is superior.

I comment:

In IRV, voters need to strategize, and they do so.

IRV needs defensive strategy too, but, like Plurality, its
defensive strategy involves an order-reversal against one's favorite.

But Blake here is repeating the old academic position that
strategy is offensive manipulation against the voting system, and
presumably, by extension, against the public good.

But it's common knowledge to everyone but journal-authors, and
people who worship their authority, that the strategy problem with
voting systems isn't that people can maximize their utility
expectation by voting insincerely, but rather that they often
_have to_ do that in order to protect a sincere CW or enforce
majority rule.

Even the average voter understands that, when s/he shows regret
for having to dump his/her favorite to vote for a lesser-evil. But the
journal authors don't understand that. Blake once said that I claimed
the authors were dishonest about that. No, I never said that dishonesty
was the only explanation. Maybe it's just incredible, astounding
stupidity. I merely mentioned dishonesty as one possible explanatory
theory.

In any case, whichever explanation is right, if someone is as head-up
the-ass as the academic journal authors on voting systems are on
that matter, then I suggest that that doesn't inspire much confidence
in them as authorities on voting systems. But I they'll always
have their faithful worshipers like Blake & Markus.

Mike Ossipoff









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