[EM] Bucklin, the Supreme Court, LNH

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

Markus quoted the Minnesota Supreme Court:

the Minnesota Supreme Court wrote:
>The preferential system [Bucklin] directly diminishes the right of an
>elector to give an effective vote for the candidate of his choice.

I reply:

That's odd, because if the voter votes only for his favorite, then he's 
doing exactly what he does in Plurality. Bucklin doesn't take away any 
rights that voters previously had in Plurality. If Bucklin is 
unconstitutional, then Plurality must be unconsititutional too.

Bucklin gives the voter the _option_ to help one or more compromises. Adding 
an option is different from taking away voters' rights.

Your quote continued:

>If he votes for him once, his power to help him is exhausted.

I reply:

And how many times would you like him to be able to vote for him? What 
peculiar kind of unproposable voting system do you have in mind?

Your quote continued:

>If he votes for other candidates he may harm his choice, but cannot help 
>him.

I reply:

Why should voting for one candidate be expected to help another candidate?
And if the voter believes that his favorite has a win, then no one is 
forcing him to rank his 2nd choice. Bucklin adds more rights, more freedom, 
more options, but doesn't take away any rights. Contrary to the quote above, 
Bucklin doesn't diminish the voter's rights in comparison to Plurality, a 
method that is supposedly constitutional.

James Green-Armytage wrote (9 April 2004):
>I have to agree that Bucklin's later-no-harm failure is a big deal.

I reply:

LNH Is a big silly deal. The only reason why IRV meets LNH is because IRV 
eliminates your favorite before letting you help your 2nd choice. Do you see 
that? Protecting your favorite from "harm" from your 2nd choice, by 
eliminating your favorite? No thanks, for the favorite-protection that IRV 
offers.

If that's your notion of protection, then I wouldn't hire you as a 
bodyguard.

>I
>think that it's much much worse than the later-no-harm failure of wv
>Condorcet, since there needs to be a cycle for a later choice to harm
>an earlier choice. I'd say that the later-no-harm problem is Bucklin is
>somewhere in the same league as the same problem in Borda (*gasp!*),
>which is pretty darn bad. Basically, the truncation incentive in
>Bucklin is "off the hook."

Defensive truncation is Bucklin's defensive strategy, a strategy that's 
always sufficient to enforce majority rule.

IRV has favorite-burial incentive. In IRV there will be times when 
favorite-burial is the only way that a majority can protect majority rule or 
a CW. With IRV, sometimes every Nash equiilbrium will be one that involves 
defensive favorite-burial. That's worse than truncation-incentive.

James A. continued:

So I think that the court was right on that one.

I reply:

Only if they also ruled that Plurality is unconsititutional. Bucklin adds 
to, increases the options and rights of the voter, compared to Plurality. 
Bucklin doesn't take away any right that the voter has in Plurality.

Mike Ossipoff

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