[EM] 2-party domination = favorite betrayal?

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 01:37 PM 8/30/2005, Warren Smith wrote:
>PS. Although approval voting does not involve favorite betrayal, there is some
>reason to suspect it will lead to 2-party domination.  See
>    http://math.temple.edu/~wds/crv/NurseryEffect.html
>and note that range voting seems a lot less likely than AV to lead to 2-party
>domination.  This is quite a subtle effect, and I certainly was not smart
>enough to predict it with mathematics alone - it required an experiment to
>make me see the light.

The conclusion does not seem, to me, at all warranted from the data. 
I'd invite Warren to, here, detail for us *precisely* how the data 
leads to that conclusion.

I've discussed this with him on the Range list, and it seems he 
thinks I'm being obtuse, so let me be obtuse in public, where more 
than one other can show me the error of my ways.

I'm also trying to be efficient, since I *am* trying to help with the 
Center for Range Voting, and there are plenty of other things than do 
than wrangle about details.... this is important, though, because 
Warren is citing his study (as he does above) as an attempt to prove 
Range superior to Approval, and specifically as a reason why the 
leaders of third parties would be practically suicidal to not embrace 
Range over Approval (not to mention IRV). If the study is flawed, if 
the conclusions are flawed, and the study is used in efforts to 
promote range, it will harm the cause.