[EM] Chris, Range-Voting

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

Chris--

You wrote:

CB: Range Voting is fine if  all one cares about is  "minimizing
Bayesian regret"  (Warren D. Smith, one of  the paper's
authors)  or  meeting the  "Favourite Betrayal Criterion" (i.e. never
having a strategic incentive to Compromise).

  I reply:

Any method is best if all one cares about is its criterion compliances. So 
what?

You have differrent criteria, and that's fine. Some want to get rid of the 
lesser-of-2-evils problem. You need to understand that, just as you aren't 
wrong to have the criteria that you have, neither are those wrong who want 
to get rid of the lesser-of-2-evils problem, to reduce the need for 
drastically insincere defensive strategy.


You continued:

To cheerfully assert, as W.D. Smith does, that  "minimizing Bayesian
regret" trumps majority rule  is  tantamount to saying
that more emotional voters should have more power than less emotional
voters, which in my view is nonsensical and unfair.

I reply:

Range-Voting (also known as CR) doesn't give more power to one voter than to 
another.

In fact, oppose to what you imply, with CR, the less emotional, more 
strategic, voter will use his power more effectively. That's his business. 
If the sincere voter wants to give up sosme trategic power in order to rate 
sincerely, that too is his business.

You continued:

One of  the aims of a voting method should be to minimize the advantage
well informed strategists have over sincere voters.
Under Range Voting, well informed strategists will have much more clout
than naive sincere voters.

I reply:

As I said, the voter who chooses to vote strategically uses more of his 
power than does the voter who chooses to rate sincerely. Why is that a 
problem to you. They both have a right to vote as they choose to.

You continued:

To me, it is axiomatic that a single-winner voting method should, with
sincere voting, reduce to FPP when there are only two
candidates.

I reply:

Axiomatic? You're giving to us a fundamental standard that you have. That's 
your axiom. You mustn't expect everyone to have the same axioms that you 
have.

You continued:

RV doesn't.
No voting method is invulnerable to informed strategy, but meeting No
Zero-Information Strategy is very easy to meet, so
why not at least achieve that?  RV doesn't.

I reply:

  "Even"? :-)  Meaning that you think that CR doesn't achieve anything else? 
If that isn't what you mean, then what do you mean?

Anyway, since our public elections aren't 0-info elections, your criterion 
isn't very important for those public elections.

As for the way of counting blank votes, I don't know what's best. Your 
objection to it sounds valid. Maybe it's better to count a blank vote as a 
mid-rating. That's what I suggested for interpreting no mark in -1,0,1, when 
the ballot has a box for 1 and a box for -1, and no box for 0, and a voter 
doens't mark any  box for a particular candidatre.

You continued:


I dislike methods that pose any sort of problem for voters who simply
want to vote their full  sincere ranking. Approval is
horrible in this respect:  voters must agonize on where to place their
approval cutoff.

I reply:

Agonize? Nearly always you know which ones you want to vote for, which ones 
deserve a vote.

But if you don't, then just vote for all the above-average ones, especiallly 
if the elecdtion is 0-info.

Earlier I said that our elections aren't 0-info. I mis-stated. Now our 
elections are 0-info, but they won't remain so when we get an adequate 
voting system.

Or just vote for each candidate who is so good that you'd rather put him/her 
in office instead of holding the election, if you had that choice. That's 
the better-than-expectation strategy of Approval. If it's CR, give maximum 
points to those and minimum points to the others. Unless you choose to rate 
sincely, as is your right.

You wrote:

but is  3-slot CR the best  3-slot method?  I say
definitely not!

I reply:

Maybe not. Maybe 3-rank-position Condorcet is better.

But Condorcet with still more rank positions is better still. CR is probably 
more winnnable due to its simplicity & familiarity.

Mike Ossipoff

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