[EM] ignoring "strength of opinion"

[rob brown]

On 12/1/05, James Gilmour <jgilmour at globalnet.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > rob brown Sent: Thursday, December 01, 2005 1:38 AM
> > Not sure that's really what I meant, because it all depends
> > on the definition of "democratic" and don't think I want to
> > go there.  :) I suppose its unfair, but even that is
> > debatable.
>
> What I had in mind was if I vote 1, 2, 3, 4 (1 = most preferred, the one I
> want to see win) for candidates A, B, C, D,
> and you vote 100, 99, 2, 1 (1 = most preferred) for the same four
> candidates, it would be fundamentally undemocratic if
> your vote counted for more in determining the result just because you
> expressed your preferences more strongly that I
> did.


Well yes, I agree with that.  I choose not to use the term "undemocratic"
because it is so subject to opinion as to what it means....but all I can say
is its a bad, bad idea to allow that.

I tend to view things from a Game Theory perspective,  (or classical
economics, for that matter), where the assumption is that everyone is
independently pursuing their own self interest.  A system which is designed
for people who do not behave this way is inherently unstable and
unpredictable, so best just to design it for selfish people, who -- in thr
case of elections -- would vote in the manner that is strategically best for
them.

I cannot imagine a scenario where it doesn't make the most strategic sense
to give your vote the maximum weight, assuming you vote at all.  (unless, of
course you can save that "voting power" for another election, but let's keep
this simple by assuming you can't)


> I made my comment following this paragraph of yours:
> >  Intentionally
> > ignoring this information (or, more likely, not collecting it
> > in the first place) is the only thing that makes
> > sense....otherwise people who had any opinion whatsoever would
> > have an incentive to vote insincerely, saying they felt very
> > strongly so as to have the most impact on the outcome.
>
> I had not assumed your comment in this paragraph was about a single
> question poll, but about single-winner elections in
> general, where there might usually be several candidates.  The only
> example of normalisation of weighted preferences I
> have seen was for multi-seat elections, but I see no reason why the
> principle is not equally applicable to single-winner
> elections where the votes are recorded as weighted preferences.


Yeah, well I'm not sure what I was talking about anymore. :)  I tried to
make a simple analogous example to make a point, but others wanted to make
add complications, which kind of led the discussion astray.  I agree with
your comments, but none of really applies to the little point I was trying
to make....

-rob
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