[EM] Re: Bucklin, MCA, and history

[Kevin Venzke]

Alex,

 --- Alex Small <asmall at physics.ucsb.edu> a écrit : 
> Your mention of the relationship between MCA and Bucklin brings to mind a
> question:
> 
> Does anybody on the list know how widespread Bucklin was in the US?  I've
> seen little blurbs when googling for Bucklin, but mostly it's "tried in
> the US, especially the South, in the early 20th century, eventually
> abandoned".

I can't answer this part, but I seem to remember reading something about an
instance where a court felt that Bucklin was unacceptable, because "lower
preferences hurt higher ones," as they say.

> If voters were dissatisfied with Bucklin, I wonder to what extent they'll
> like MCA.  If voters won't like MCA, I'm even more pessimistic that
> they'll like Approval.

The reason I personally would be dissatisfied with Bucklin, is because whether
and when to approve candidates depends on what other voters are going to do.
The math for determining the best strategy requires you to guess a lot more
numbers than with MCA or Approval.

Also, I don't think Bucklin or MCA are clone-proof when the number of possible ranks
is equal to the number of candidates who happen to run, although Adam's recent message 
(where he noted that IRV technically is clone-proof) makes me doubt my claim a tiny bit.

Limited-rank MCA and Approval are clearly clone-proof, and the fewer ranks there
are on the ballot, the simpler the strategy and (I would argue) the "fairer" the method
feels.

> 
> Still, hope springs eternal (who said that?).

I think Alexander Pope said that...

Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.com


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