[EM] IRV's "majority winner". What if we let the people choose?

[Adam H Tarr]

>> Now consider:
>> 49  A<C<B
>> 48  B<C<A
>>  3  C<B<A
>> IRV winner = B;  CW winner = C.
>> I doubt very much whether most electors would accept C as the "winner"
>> if this were an election for State Governor, much less for a directly
>> elected President of the USA.  If anyone has evidence to the contrary I'd
>> like very much to see it.
>
>Whether C has widespread acceptability depends almost entirely on
>information which is not captured in ranked ballots.  At the extremes, C
>may enjoy either unanimous popularity, or near total rejection. 

A hardcore Condorcet supporter would say that the distinction is irrelevant, 
since either way C wins all contests pairwise.  To put it another way, C would 
win any approval election where the voters have perfect information.

>Approval voting is able to distinguish between these extreme cases with
>ease.  

Approval only accurately distinguished between these cases when all the voters 
use the same utility-based cutoff.  If some voters have different utility 
cutoffs than others, or if some of them actually look at the polls before 
voting, then the ability of approval to distinguish between the two extremes 
becomes a bit muddied.

>Ranked methods can only do so to the extent that they encourage
>insincere strategy.

What strategy would that be?  The sincere votes here are already a Nash 
Equilibrium.  The only thing the outer factions can do is throw the election to 
the other outer faction.  This is a pretty strategy-free example in Condorcet 
voting.