[EM] A strategy free method

[atarr at purdue.edu]

Forest Simmons wrote:

> The voters indicate which candidates they prefer over the status quo.  If
> the status quo is the Condorcet Winner (i.e. no alternative is preferred
> over the status quo) then the incumbent/status quo stays in for another
> term of office.  Otherwise, the candidate that is preferred over the
> status quo by the greatest number of voters is elected.

My impression is that this is only strategy-free when the incumbent has at most 
one pairwise defeat.  This may be a reasonable assumption if we assume that the 
voter's preferences shift slowly over time, but it is not generally true.

Take this example: say A is the incumbent, and B and C both beat A pairwise.  If 
my preferences are C>B>A, and I vote sincerely, and B wins, I will regret not 
strategically voting C>A>B.  Therefore, strategy exists.
 
> Basically, this is Approval, with the Minimum Acceptable Virtual Candidate
> (aka the None of the Below approval cutoff) replaced by the incumbent.

Seems more like Condorcet, with a peculiar completion method (elect whoever has 
the largest majority of votes against the incumbent).  The simplicity of this 
completion method allows you to get away with using approval ballots, which is a 
nice perk, I suppose.

-Adam