[EM] Summary of strategy enhancements for Condorcet wv

MIKE OSSIPOFF nkklrp at hotmail.com
Tue May 25 18:28:01 PDT 2004


First, I don't believe that Condorcet wv has a serious strategy problem. 
We've often discussed the defensive truncation strategy. Here's how I often 
word it: The only way you can steal the election from other voters is if 
they were trying to help you. Doesn't that make you proud of yourself?

Also, Adam has pointed out that defensive equal rankng also reliably 
protects CWs. It's the basis of AERLO.

Because I've recently defined AERLO & ATLO here, there's no need to repeat 
those definitions here.

For Condorcet wv, they provide easier protection of a CW, they conver ESC 
compliance, and they ensure that the person who considers the candidates to 
be in 2 sets such that the merit differences within the 2 sets is negligible 
compared to the merit difference between the 2 sets has no incentive to not 
sincerely rank the better-set candidates.

Those options also confer benefits and additional criterion compliances on 
other rank methods, such as Bucklin, as I've described in previous postings.

I've also proposed options that are more automatic than those. I'll repeat 
some of their definitions:

Order Estimate Option:

The voter can indicate, on hir ballot, what order s/he estimates the  
candidates to have, in a 1-dimensional issue space or political spectrum. 
Then, if there's a circular tie that hir favorite didn't win, and if each 
member of that circular tie is majority-beaten by another member of the 
circular tie, then, if some people who voted the winner over that voter's 
favorite have ranked someone over that voter's favorite in contradiction 
with that voter's estimated political spectrum order,  and if that voter's 
favorite would have otherwise won, then (depending on which the voter chose) 
that winner would be dropped from that voter's ranking, or everyone whom 
that voter ranks over that winner would be promoted to 1st place in that 
voter's ranking.

[end of order-estimate option definition]

Unanimity Option

When I posted about this some time ago, I defined the Unanimity Option in 
detail. For now, I'll just say that choosing that option means that if there 
certain attributes of the comparison of the unanimity of some of the defeats 
in a circular tie, and if your favorite doesn't win that circular tie, and 
if all the defeats in that circular tie are majority defeats, then that 
triggers the dropping of certain candidates or (depending on which you 
chose) the promotion of certain candidates to 1st place in your ranking.

A complete description is in the archives.

Ranked Majority Defeat Disqualification (RMDD) further reduces defensive 
strategy need. In fact it eliminates defensive strategy need.  It eliminates 
the lesser-of-2-evils problem.

That benefit comes at the cost of the occasional inconvenience of having to 
disqualify all the candidates, if they all lose, and hold a new election 
with all new candidates.

If one wants the ultimate freedom from defensive strategy need, it's worth 
that occasional inconvenience.

Mike Ossipoff

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