[EM] Condorcet strategy and anti-strategy measures

[Eric Gorr]

At 3:51 AM -0400 5/26/04, James Green-Armytage wrote:
>	I do believe that Condorcet wv had a serious strategy problem.
>	While it is unknown how likely a successful execution of the burial
>strategy would be in a public election, I believe that if it did occur, it
>would produce an *extremely* negative reaction towards both the result and
>the election method itself.
>	Imagine if Kerry beat Bush by a few hundred thousand votes, 
>and yet Bush
>actually won the election because most of the Bush voters strategically
>ranked Nader second, creating a fake Nader > Kerry victory to knock Kerry
>out of the running.
>
>	Something like this, for example.
>44%: Bush > Nader > Kerry
>5%: Bush > Kerry > Nader
>38%: Kerry > Nader > Bush
>5%: Kerry > Bush > Nader
>8%: Nader > Kerry > Bush
>Bush : Kerry = 49 : 51
>Bush : Nader = 54 : 46
>Kerry : Nader = 48 : 52

At least one reason why this is not a serious strategy problem is the 
near perfect information that the Bush voters must have for the 
strategy to make any sense.

If the Bush voters were off by just the right amount, Nader could win 
the election instead of their sincere second choice, Kerry.

I am not aware of any polling method which is capable of being this 
accurate, so unless the Bush voters like playing chicken, their only 
rational choice is to vote sincerely. And, among the first things 
people would learn is to lie to those taking the polls since 
providing an honest answer has a greater chance to do nothing for 
them or to hurt them then it does to actually help them.

The only potential place for this strategy to work would be in 
relatively small groups where everyone knows everyone else and how 
they are going to vote, but then one cannot discount the potential 
for counter-strategies to be employed in which case nearly anything 
could happen and again the only rational choice for the voters would 
be to vote sincerely.