Strong FBC

[Rob LeGrand]

Alex wrote:
> Question:  Can we come up with a voting method such that you never have an
> incentive to lie to the computer?  If so, then it doesn't matter if your
> assigned strategy is insincere, we still satisfy strong FBC.

See my post on the Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/8793

Basically, the only way to take ranked ballots as input and choose a winner so
that no voter would ever have reason to vote insincerely is to choose the
winner according to *one* of the ballots, in effect giving dictator powers to
that voter.  If it's acceptable for the election method to be that random, then
it's a perfect system.  Otherwise, nothing will do.  Even if a Small Voting
Machine were carefully formulated and built, it would still be possible for a
voter to gain by voting insincerely.  I gave a lot of thought to a similar idea
a while ago, but I gave up on it when I realized that the G-S theorem would
still apply no matter what went on inside the SVM black box.  I imagine that an
SVM or Cumulative Repeated Approval Balloting would remove incentive for
insincerity about as much as would be practical, but of course the public would
be unlikely to support such complicated systems.  At least with Approval, you
never have reason not to vote for your favorite, even if you can't express
every single preference.  I love Richard's explanation for why the Approval
winner could be seen as preferable to the Condorcet winner when the two are
different.

I also like the revised Bucklin idea, the one that allows multiple levels and
multiple candidates at each level.  I guess revised Bucklin is to regular
Bucklin as CR is to Borda.  More investigation of this idea . . . ?

--
Rob LeGrand
honky98 at aggies.org
http://www.aggies.org/honky98/

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