[EM] Center for Range Voting Formed

[Adam Tarr]

I wrote and Kevin responded:

> > * OK, in the interest of fairness, here is one winning-votes Condorcet
> > strategy that is arguably superior to sincerity.  This is from Blake
> > Cretney.  It's pretty simple: if you have a sincere tied ranking, it's
> > better to rank those candidates in some random order than to rank them
> > equally.  So in stead of ranking three candidates tied for fourth,
> > rank them 4, 5, 6, (in some order) and kick any candidates below
> > fourth down two slots.  There are situations where this strategy can
> > hurt you, but on average (aggregating over a large number of voters
> > with similar preferences) it will not.
> 
> I'm surprised to read this considering all the discussion of how WV
> encourages compression of the top ranks in order to reduce the defeat
> strengths among those candidates.

I admit I haven't followed the latest winning votes vs. margins
debates closely.  So I can only offer a few comments:

1)  The strategy I noted applied more to the bottom rankings than
higher rankings.  I'd have to look up the examples to remember the
exact situation.

2)  Yes, in situations where majority wins are scarce (due to lots of
truncated ballots), then what Mike Ossipoff called "defensive equal
ranking" is sometimes necessary.  However, this is far from a
universal optimal strategy, as it can hurt you if your favorite
actually has a chance of winning.

3)  This does not change the fact that Warren's "strategic Condorcet"
strategy was terribly flawed.  Even at the extreme, order-reversal is
basically never useful in winning-votes Condorcet.  The most extreme
strategy I can imagine being useful in Condorcet is to reduce your
ballot to an approval ballot by placing all alternatives into two
slots.

-Adam