[EM] Rankings made by another method

[James Green-Armytage]

James Gilmour wrote:
>Your definition relies on the answer to a question that is asked only
>very rarely, and is never
>asked in a real election.  (It was asked in the Scottish Social Attitudes
>Survey, shortly after the
>two elections to the Scottish Parliament, but that is exceptional.)  In a
>real election the voters,
>or at least those who are awake, will always take into account any
>effects inherent in the
>arithmetic of the voting system being used for that election.  It was for
>this reason that I
>suggested it would not give very useful results to take ballots recorded
>for one voting system and
>count them by a different voting system.  It would still not be useful if
>the ballots were marked
>sincerely (ie sincerely as determined by the unasked question) because
>such ballots might well not
>produce the result the voters wanted.  

	I don't follow your train of reasoning in the last sentence, to be honest.

>So you have still discovered nothing useful.  Worse, you have
>probably misled yourself.

	I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about when you say that I
have misled myself. I was merely pointing out your misapprehension of the
concept of sincere preferences. Sincere preferences are the ding-an-sich
of voting methods. We do not expect to know what they are in a real
election, but to deny their existence is to fall into some sort of weird
nihilism. The goal of a voting method is to decide on a result that most
fairly corresponds to the sum of voters' sincere preferences.

	Let's go back to the last exchange.
James Gilmour said:
>> I would suggest that analysing (counting) by a
>> different method the voting patterns of votes cast for 
>> counting under one  method will not give a
>> very useful result.

Mike Ossipoff replied:
>> ...unless sincere voting is assumed.

James Gilmour replied:
>
>This does not address the point I was making.  What is sincere (= will
>best achieve the desired
>result = election of most preferred candidate) in one voting system MAY
>not be sincere or sensible
>under another system because of the effect of the system itself.  Before
>deciding how to mark the
>ballot paper, the savvy voter will have sussed the effects of the system.
> The markings on the
>ballot paper will still be sincere.  And it is completely invalid for
>analysts to impute all sorts
>of additional information about that voter's wishes or desires when the
>voter did not provide such
>information.  The markings on the ballot paper, and the interpretation of
>those markings, are
>specific to the voting system under which those markings were made.

I now say:
	Your equation of sincerity with strategic praxis in a given method is
contrary to usage. This is the entire purpose for our concepts of sincere
voting and strategic voting, concepts which do indeed have use value. If
the methods you were talking about before were both ranked ballots (no, I
haven't traced the exchange back to before the e-mails I'm quoting), then
Mike was quite right to say "unless sincere voting is assumed." Sincere
voting in one ranked ballot method is by definition equivalent to sincere
voting in another ranked ballot method. You are entirely right in saying
that, in practice, people will use different strategies based on different
tally methods, and Mike was conceding that, with the correct aside "unless
sincere voting is assumed." If all votes are sincere, then there is no
room for voters to respond to differences in the tally method. The
definition of sincere voting in ranked ballot methods which I gave is a
valid and useful one.
	It's not a big deal, you just misused a term. I don't see why you told me
that I'm misleading myself when I pointed out your mistake though. Your
statement remains a legitimate one, that is, the statement that it is
somewhat dubious to analyze ballots cast under one tally method based on a
different tally method.

James Green-Armytage
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