[EM] Saari's Basic Argument

[Forest Simmons]

On Tue, 26 Mar 2002, Steve Barney wrote:

> Forest:
>
> > From:  Forest Simmons <fsimmons at p...>
> > Date:  Fri Mar 15, 2002  10:59 am
> > Subject:  Re: [EM] Saari's Basic Argument
> >
> > At best Saari proves that Borda is the best choice method based on
> > rankings in situations where there can be no stacking of the deck (clones)
> > or insincere rankings.
>
> This seems to beg a question of balance. At what point is the BC's accuracy at
> determining the "correct" winner overcome by it's mamipulatability? Your
> qualification about sincere votes seems to imply that there must be some point
> at which another method is more likely then the BC to determine the winner(s)
> which would have been elected by the BC under sincere voting conditions. It
> seems to me that this may be a quantifiable problem.

It's like a beach ball balanced on the top of a hill.  The instant a
breeze starts blowing in any direction it's going to start rolling down
hill.  The instant there is any polling information or any opportunity to
run clones, Borda loses all of its advantages.

Borda is no good for real elections.

It has many other extremely valuable applications, so don't feel bad.

Forest