[EM] Sunday reply to Bill Lewis Clark

MIKE OSSIPOFF nkklrp at hotmail.com
Sun Jan 18 23:39:02 PST 2004


I'd said:

>Say we conducted an Approval vote, collected the ballots, and then
>said "Now  we'll do another Approval balloting, whose results will be
>added to those of  the previous balloting". How do you vote in the 2nd
>balloting? The same as  in the 1st balloting.

Bill replied:

Not necessarily.  The flaw with that argument can be shown in this related
example:

Say you measured rainfall of .75cm on a particular day, and rounded that
up to 1cm in your record books.  Now suppose you wanted to estimate how
much rainfall you'd receive in 10 days, based on that sample.  10 days
times 1cm per day is 10cm, right?

(Of course this only addresses this particular argument for the strategic
equivalence of AV and CR...

I reply:

No, actually it doesn't.

It addresses rounded off rainfall measurement. If you think that your 
rounded rainfall is somehow relevant to the series of identical Approval 
elections, then perhaps you'd tell us why you believe that.

Does your Approval strategy involve rounding off?

You like to make unsupported statements in an assertive manner.  I'm just 
letting you know.

If you believe that someone's optimal strategy in a CR election is different 
from what it would be in the series of identical Approval elections, then is 
there some reason why you don't want to tell us exactly why you believe 
that?

When you want to refute something that someone here has said, it would be 
really great if you could make an effort to justify your statements.

Bill continued:

In any event, from yours and other posts (as well as some additional web
research) I think I understand some of the assumptions required to
demonstrate the strategic equivalence of AV and CR:

(1) (Nearly) ALL voters under AV must use their optimal strategy.
(2) (Nearly) ALL voters under CR must use their optimal strategy.

and possibly (unless this is already covered in assumption #1:)

(3) (Practically) NO voters under AV can use randomized or weak optimal
strategies.

I reply:



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