[EM] Re: Jame G.'s & Curt's Strange Prediction About Your Voting

[Curt Siffert]

Mike, after a long exchange I think that the point I was trying to make 
is one you agree with (regarding primaries).

I never said that a voter would change their preference from their 
compromise choice to their last choice.  I re-read what I wrote to the 
list and I don't read what I wrote that way.  You referred to people 
preferring C to B, when C was preferred by the fewest, and would then 
decide they preferred B.  I read that as this group of voters having C 
as their first choice, and B as their compromise choice.  Not 
compromise and last.  It is possible that you've had that argument 
presented to you enough times in the past that you just assumed that is 
what I was saying, and then overreacted.

I did mean what I said about a voter potentially preferring their 
compromise choice to their first choice, after the fact, for example in 
the case of a primary that would lead to a general election decided by 
plurality.  It sounds like you see that point.

And despite that fact, I definitely did *not* say and do not believe 
that this would justify picking a different result than the Condorcet 
Winner, in these sorts of elections.  I personally would choose the 
condorcet winner even if there were another winner of greater social 
utility - because in democratic political elections, I prefer to count 
the number of people, rather than the intensity of their desires.  In 
the 3/49/48 scenario, I still think the Condorcet Winner is the correct 
winner.

My belief is - and you can check the archives for this since I've said 
it before - that other voters might see that scenario as a flaw with 
Condorcet methods, and I believe it is a potential public relations 
problem.

Curt

On May 20, 2004, at 8:53 PM, MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote:

>
> Curt--
>
> You said:
>
> Mike, that's a straw man.  I agree that your scenario is ridiculous.
> It wasn't my scenario, though.
>
> I reply:
>
> Sure it was. You & James G. said that people would prefer their last 
> choice to the compromise that they formerly preferred to the last 
> choice, and had voted over the last choice, if the compromise didn't 
> get many votes.
>
> You disappoint me. Have the honesty to not try to own up to what you 
> said. It's in the archives, after all.
>
> You continued:
>
> This kind of debate is tiresome
>
> I reply:
>
> Of course it is, but I merely replied to something that you said. It 
> must have become tiresome very rapidly if it's tiresome upon receiving 
> your first reply.
>
> But yes it of course is tiresome in another way. It's tiresome when 
> all the old IRVer arguments are posted again and again. If only people 
> would read the archives first. I don't know how many times we've 
> answered the old "last choice preferred to unfavorite compromse" 
> argument of the IRVers.
>
> You continued:
>
> - any one of us can choose example
> candidates to appeal to biases.  Why not just use Ghandi, McCain, and
> Satan?
>
> I reply:
>
> What you name them is irrelevant. You said that people would start 
> preferring their last choice to their compromise if the compromise 
> wasn't much of a favorite, and would vote ther former last choice over 
> their compromise in a runoff between the CW and IRV's winner.
>
> Two points.  First:
>
> You yourself are on record as saying that you prefer CR to Condorcet if
> there isn't tactical voting, to maximize social utility.
>
> I reply:
>
> And that's relevant to this question....how?
>
> I wasn't saying that SU doesn't matter. I was saying that it's 
> ridiculous to say that people will start liking their last choice over 
> their compromise if the compromise is favorite to fewer. Now your 
> theory is that those majority voters will decide that they want to 
> maximize SU instead of avoiding the election of their last chioce? :-) 
> This gets better and better.
>
> You continued:
>
> Bolson just posted a scenario where the social utility winner is
> different than the Condorcet winner.
>
> I reply:
>
> Did I say that I was replying to something that Bolson said? The 
> less-likely scenario in which IRV picks better SU than Condorcet is 
> quite irrelevant. In Merrill's simulations, pairwise-count scored 
> right up at the top, and IRV did considerably worse. The nonranked 
> Approval did significantly better than IRV at SU, and pairwise-count 
> did better still.
>
> So I have no interest in someone's unusual scenario in which IRV does 
> better than Condorcet at SU. Nor did I mention it in the posting to 
> which you're supposedly replying.
>
> You continued:
>
> It just so happens that in that
> particular scenario, IRV picked the social utility winner.
>
> I reply:
>
> I said nothing about that atypical example in the posting to which you 
> don't seem to be replying.
>
> You continued:
>
> Second:
>
> You're trying to argue that if a population votes rationally and a
> Condorcet winner emerges, that it will be *impossible* for anyone,
> anywhere to regret their vote if their candidate wins, and that it is
> ridiculous for myself or James to argue that.
>
> I reply:
>
> What I said is that it's ridiculous for you &/or James G. to argue 
> that people will start liking their former last choice better than 
> their compromise when they find out that their compromise isn't a big 
> favorite. They had reasons for one candidate being their last choice, 
> and another being their compromise, and there's no reason to believe 
> that those reasons depended on an assumption that their compromise 
> will be favorite to more people than their last choice, or to more 
> people than their favorite.
>
> So Yes, your claim that those people will suddenly decide that their 
> last choice is better than their compromise because their compromise 
> isn't favoraite to many--yes that's ridiculous.
>
>
> This is wrong.  A perfect example is a primary.
>
> I reply:
>
> A perfectly different example from the elections that we've been 
> discussing, which are final elections and not primaries.
>
> Aside from that, if the general election will be by Plurality, then 
> yes, it would be advantageous to go into it with a good Pluralitly 
> scorer. I just wasn't aware that you were talking, in the posting that 
> I was replying to, about an election that was a primary, and for which 
> the general election would be a Plurality count. :-)
>
> You continued:
>
> It's a very different example than your example of a Nader-or-Kerry
> voter deciding to vote for Bush.
>
> I reply:
>
> You got that right. It's completely different from the kind of 
> election that you were talking about when you posted the posting to 
> which I was replying.
>
> James G.:
>
> Aside from those questions, you're saying that, because you think that 
> those majority members might change their mind, and start liking their 
> last choice better than their compromise--because of that, you would 
> disregard the voted preferences that they expressed. Ignoring what 
> they actually indicated because you feel that they might change their 
> minds. Do you see the ridiculousness of that?
>
> Mike Ossipoff
>
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