[EM] Blake's margins arguments

[Rob LeGrand]

Forest wrote:
> This leads to another question:
>
> Are voters more apt to vote sincerely if they know the winner will be
> determined according to the rules of margins or to the rules of winning
> votes?

This is certainly an important question to ask.  But I believe that one of
Blake's most important points is that winning-votes does *not* generally
encourage sincerity more than margins.  In fact, winning-votes often
encourages *more* drastic strategy:  If A>B>C is sincere and voting A=B>C
helps the voter under margins, winning-votes could make that strategy
ineffective, forcing a more drastically strategic B>A>C vote.  Besides, any
strategy that works under margins has an equivalent (maybe probabilistic)
strategy that works under winning-votes.  I see winning-votes as both noble
in its goals and ultimately ineffective, so I prefer margins for its better
social utility and intuitiveness.

=====
Rob LeGrand
rob at approvalvoting.org
http://www.approvalvoting.org/

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Shopping - Send Flowers for Valentine's Day
http://shopping.yahoo.com

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