[EM] To Blake, re: strategy

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

I sent this message to EM yesterday, but it couldn't be delivered,
and so I'm resending it now:


Blake said:

If some people are able to get more influence by a greater
understanding of the method, or better guesses about how other's are
voting, I say that is a bad thing, although to some extent inevitable.

I reply:

Then it would be nice to use a voting system that never gave
any strategic incentive. Unless Random Ballot is a realistic
public proposal, however, your "bad thing" is indeed inevitable,
even with Ranked Pairs(margins).

Have you heard about the Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem? I haven't
personally seen it, but it has to do with the unavoidableness of
strategy. I don't know what kinds of methods its application is
limited to.


Blake continues:

But I say that although other goals may be important too, the
possibility that some voters can get a better outcome by outhinking the
rest of the electorate is a bad thing in and of itself, as it frustrates
the goal of equal influence.

I reply:

There's no reason why Blake can't call that a standard. Any
person can come up with his own standard, and of course lots of
people do. So Blake would prefer a voting system that either is
genuinely & completely strategy-free, like Random Ballot, or at
least a method whose strategy  is equally understandable or
un-understandable to everyone.

I don't know of any well-discussed method or 1-balloting method
that is deterministic and which doesn't have a strategy that you
could call complicated or demanding. For any of those methods,
someone familiar with the strategy would be better off than someone
who is not. They all fail that standard, then.

But the failure is mitigated by the fact that, for any voter faction,
someone could explain the strategy to them, and actually advise them
on particular strategy decisions for a particular election.

Blake continues:

It is also bad because the result may be
less stable, as it can change without a change of opinion. As far as I
can see, this is the position taken by those much-despised academics.

I reply:

Well, I've said that one thing that I don't like about IRV is that
its mathematical strategy is exceptionally difficult, requiring
estimate of many probabilities. Difficulty doesn't mean that people
won't try to guess, of course. Insincere voting is common in
public IRV elections. The fact that it may be erroneous strategy
doesn't seem to make it any better. People are dumping their
favorites, which I don't like, however un-understandable the
strategy is.

That suggests a more do-able goal: Get rid of the need to dump
favorites.

You said that you hope that FBC won't continue to be
used, presumabley because you prefer the unattainable Strong FBC.
But the dis-satisfaction with the problem measured by FBC, both
among the public and among people who study voting systems, isn't
going to go away.

Concern and dis-satisfaction about LO2E need is very widespread.
I've read that that kind of voting is common where you live too, and
has been well-studied there.

I'd say that if the much-despised journal authors say what you
say they do, then they're saying something that isn't controversial.

But I'm not quite sure how it relates usefully to the choice of
single-winner voting system proposals.

I doubt that we can get a deterministic
voting sytem that meets their standard, but there are other strategy
issues that many have expressed concern about, and on which big
improvement is possible. I'm talking in particular about the
lesser-of-2-evils problem.

By the way, I didn't say that I despise the journal authors on
voting systems. They live in a world of their own, seemingly quite
out of touch with the concerns and interest of voters. Why despise
them for that? That's purely their business.

It's just that when you & Markus invoke them, I like to remind you
that it's better to judge positions and arguments on these issues
on their own merits, than to say that a certain position is right
because someone says so.

Mike Ossipoff




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