[EM] Cumulative Vote equivalence to Plurality

[Forest Simmons]

On Fri, 4 Jun 2004, Brian Olson wrote:

[...]

>
> I don't know what the _best_ strategy for IRNR is. I hope that it is to
> cast an honest ballot.
>

No runoff method (or any other sequential elimination method) has simply
"honest ballot" as optimal strategy:

Suppose that there are three candidates that you honestly rank as A>B>C.

Suppose further, that you are reasonably sure that A could not beat C if A
survived to the last round, but that B could beat C if B survived to the
last round.  Then it might be to your advantage to rank A in second (if
not last) place, contrary to your honest preference order.

Forest

> I define my criterion for 'best strategy' probabilistically. The best
> strategy is the one that is most likely to get you what you want. I
> suppose that does leave open the possibility of oddities in some
> scenarios.
>
> If we find more than one election method which has a best strategy of
> voting honestly, then the best method is the one which satisfies the
> utilitarian goal of being the most likely to make the most people the
> happiest. That's where I'm going with my simulations. I just need to
> add a bit more complexity on the strategy side.
>
> Brian Olson
> http://bolson.org/
>
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