[EM] Re: The "Turkey" problem and limited ranks

[Dave Ketchum]

On Tue, 20 May 2003 10:53:51 -0700 (PDT) Forest Simmons wrote:


> 
>>The point of obtaining priorities is that we may be able to avoid a
>>situation where the strict-ranking CW polarizes people more than the
>>three-rank CW would.  Neither candidate need be a turkey.  The situation,
>>quite simplified, looks like:
>>55: A>B|  (A preferred to B, but given same rank)
>>45: B|A   (B preferred to A and placed in a higher rank)
>>
>>These may be in the middle of everyone's ballots instead of at the
>>top.  In other words, both A and B may well be turkeys.  In any
>>case, I want to see B elected here over A.
>>
>>
> 
> It would be nice to have B win in this case because the choice is between
> 55 mildly disappointed voters and 45 devastated voters.


Seems to me you are assuming more than you know.

Agreed that those who prefer A are not giving A a major preference over B 
(else they would assign different ranks).

However, those who prefer B are not necessarily saying "major preference" 
- could be B barely deserved the rank it got and A barely missed deserving 
the same rank - thus that the 45 might be barely disappointed by losing, 
rather than devastated.

> 
> In this case the cruder resolution would bring victory to B in the zero
> information case, for example.  But in the case of near perfect
> information, the 55 majority would probably (insincerely) demote B to the
> middle category so that the ballots would look like
> 
> 55 A|B...
> 45 B|A...
> 
> allowing A to win after all.
> 
> Is there an antidote to this kind of problem?


Yes - quit straining at gnats.

I continue to prefer Condorcet because I can rate each x as better or 
worse than the adjacent y, without getting swamped in trying to be 
understood by the vote counter as to how much better I rate my preferred 
candidate.

One complication that seems addable to Condorcet is to be able to rank two 
or more candidates as liked equally - that they be ranked normally as 
better and worse than other candidates, but I do not care which among tied 
candidates win.

> 
> In the past I have argued that this is an improvement over greater
> resolution methods because at least in the zero information case the
> results are better.
> 
> My main reservation about plain Approval and other low resolution methods
> is a nagging feeling that methods that give better results in the zero
> information case than in the perfect information case can be manipulated
> too much by fake information.

And I dislike plain Approval because, as a voter, I want to be able to 
declare x as preferred over y, while declaring both to be acceptable.
> 
> Can anybody elucidate this?
> 
> Forest

-- 
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   Dave Ketchum    108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY  13827-1708    607-687-5026
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