[EM] Re: Chris, Range-Voting

[Chris Benham]

Mike Ossipoff wrote  (Sat.Jan1), beginning with a quote from my post of 
the same date:

>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, opposite 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 some strategic power in order to rate 
>sincerely, that too is his business.
>
CB: I don't see how it is possible to  flout  Majority Favourite, 
Condorcet Loser etc. without  "giving more power
to one voter than to another".  To me, a voting method should in the 
first place work well if  all  the voters vote
sincerely.  It should try to minimize  the advantage strategists have 
over sincere voters. It shouldn't  encourage
strategising, and it shouldn't assume all the voters are strategists.
So  I wasn't referring to strategists, only sincere voters. Smith writes 
somewhere that  RV works perfectly to
minimize "regret" if  all the voters are sincere.  Those voters whose 
sincere ratings (or "private mental opinions about the
numerical utility of each candidate's possible election victory") are 
the most extreme and so always give their favourite
the maximum possible rating and their least preferred candidate the 
lowest possible rating are the "more emotional"
sincere voters I  referred to who are given more power than  "less 
emotional" sincere voters who don't vote that way.

Mike again:

>You continued:
>
>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?
>
CB: I  consider failing "No Zero-Information  Strategy"  (which is a 
strong version of  Blake Cretney's  "Sincere
Expectation Criterion")  to be silly and unfair;  and since it  seems 
very easy for a method to meet , then it should
do so.  The "at least" refers to it being easy to meet, while  "No 
(Informed) Strategy" is impossible.

Chris Benham