[EM] Re: Definite Majority Choice, AWP, AM

[James Green-Armytage]

James G-A replying to Ted, on the subject of AWP and DMC...
>
>
>I agree that AWP (have you decided to pick between RP, Beatpath or
>River?) 

	No, I haven't chosen, nor do I feel the need to choose. I consider all
three of these base methods to be very good, and I see no particular
reason to limit the definition of CWP or AWP by choosing one over the
other.

>does a better job in this particular case, and all else being
>equal, I would be happy with an AWP proposal.
>
>But all things are not equal.  How do you explain to your 80 year old
>auntie about ordering the defeats, or that RP sometimes gets a
>different result than Beatpath or River?  If you can show that AWP
>always causes the 3 strong pair-ranking methods to get the same
>answer, I would be convinced.

	This doesn't make sense to me. Are you saying for example that people
will look askance at beatpath if they know ranked pairs to be equally
good, and that they will look askance at ranked pairs if they know
beatpath to be equally good? I doubt it. 
	I think that all three methods are about equally good. If we pick
beatpath, people who like ranked pairs are likely to be happy, and vice
versa. Also, if the proposal is based on ranked pairs, and I am trying to
explain the method to someone who is not comfortable with complex voting
theory, I have no need to explain beatpath and river to them. All I have
to do is explain ranked pairs.
>
>Until then, I think DMC or some variant is the Condorcet method with
>best chance of public acceptance.

	That's your opinion. My opinion is that if DMC and AWP are roughly equal
in explainability, and that any method that combines some other ballot
with a ranking ballot will be more difficult from a superficial standpoint
than a method like sequential dropping (wv). Hence, if such superficial
considerations are intense, both DMC and AWP are likely to be beyond
reach. If the public is open to more complex methods, they are just about
as likely to entertain one method as the other. Once we've reached that
point, the important question is which method offers more benefits as an
organizing/decision-making tool. I continue to argue that AWP should be
chosen over DMC because it provides substantially more stability against
tactical voting.
	If we are ever able to do some serious focus group research comparing
ordinary people's reaction to the different methods, while treating each
one fairly, and it turns out that DMC does substantially better, I will
accept your public acceptability argument. Until then, I suggest that my
opinion on the relative public acceptability of the methods is as valid as
yours, and that further discussion should focus on the relative merits of
the methods in practice.
>
>In any case, my general comment about strategy not existing in a
>vacuum still applies here: though Bush does win under DMC using your
>proposed strategy, it is very risky.  What if 3 of the 5 D>>K>B voters
>move their cutoff below K?  Yes, they would be compromising, but in
>approval and not in rank.  B voters attempting to "game" DMC are
>gambling on how important that approval cutoff decision will be, and
>could end up with a Dean victory for their efforts.
>
	That's always the price of the burying strategy. If your sincere is B>K>D
and you vote B>D>K to increase B's chance of winning, the downside is that
you usually increase D's chance of winning as well. 
	However, let's say that we have a large group of voters whose sincere
preferences are B>>>>>>>>>D>K. That is, they prefer D slightly over K, but
they don't really care, but they passionately prefer B over both D and K.
(This is totally realistic in polarized political landscapes like the
USA.) I suggest that such voters are likely to decide which candidate (D
or K) is most likely to beat B pairwise, and to vote that candidate in
last place. If the strategy backfires, and D is elected instead of the
sincere winner K, then they haven't lost much. However, if the strategy
succeeds, and B wins instead of K, they have gained a great deal. Hence,
the burying strategy is an obvious choice, without the need for any
coordination. 
	This is exactly where CWP and AWP step in. I suggest that the most
important kind of burying strategy to guard against is the kind where
people try to change the result to a winner who is the ideological polar
opposite of everyone in the Smith set. (First, because it is a more severe
violation of the process, and second, because the buriers are more likely
to have a lot to gain and not much to lose, as explained above.) In CWP
and AWP this is always either impossible or absurdly complicated. In DMC,
it is often possible and sometimes simple. So to me, the choice is clear.
	Please consider this argument seriously and read my CWP paper before you
make any further pronouncements about the differences (or similarities) in
merit between AWP and DMC, because most of the pro-CWP arguments apply to
AWP as well, to a large degree.
http://fc.antioch.edu/~james_green-armytage/cwp13.htm

Sincerely,
James Green-Armytage