[EM] Strong FBC

Adam Tarr atarr at purdue.edu
Wed May 1 17:44:55 PDT 2002


Alex wrote:

> >I read that Riker proved that when voters have complete information about
> >eachother's preferences, and act to optimize their immediate outcome, the
> >sincere CW will win, no matter what (nonprobabilistic?) voting system is
> >used.
>
>If this is true then perhaps it is possible to come up with a system
>satisfying "strong FBC."
>
>Suppose that we all input our preference orders into a computer.  The
>program looks at what we all want, and assigns each of us the best strategy
>to optimize our outcome given info on the other voters' preferences.

I don't think your hypothetical voting method follows from the proof.  The 
thing is, you have no way of guaranteeing that people will enter their 
sincere preferences in the program.  The "perfect information" caveat is 
presumably important to make the Riker proof work.

I everyone is going to enter their sincere preferences, then we don't need 
a fancy program to get the Condorcet winner... Condorcet voting will do the 
job.

If we hypothetically had a mind-reading machine, then I think we could get 
this program thing to work, but I'm not getting my hopes up; either for a 
mind-reading machine, or a voting system that satisfies FBC in the absence 
of that machine.  We can keep trying, though.  Approval-Competed Condorcet 
didn't do it, and that seemed like a good bet.  I'll keep trying, but it 
seems like the best we can do is try to minimize the situations where 
burying your favorite is necessary.

-Adam

----
For more information about this list (subscribe, unsubscribe, FAQ, etc), 
please see http://www.eskimo.com/~robla/em



More information about the Election-Methods mailing list