[EM] One more comment on Kevin's example

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

Kevin--

You suggested that there could be a method in which a majority, who have 
transitive strict preferences among all the candidates, could ensure that 
some Y won't win, by alternately voting ">" and "=" in their rankings. You 
said that's a silly way of voting, and that, because a silly way of voting 
could make Y lose, thereby compllying with WDSC's requirement, that meant, 
you said, that WDSC's requirement must not be reasonable.

Do you see that that doesn't make any sense?

WDSC's requirement is merely that those voters, all preferring some other 
particular candidate to Y, should be able to make Y lose without reversing a 
preference. That isn't an unreasonable requirement, nor is it a silly 
requirement. But then that depends on whether you want voters to be 
strategically forced to reverse their preferences. Some would say that the 
guarantee, offered by WDSC-complying methods, that those voters can achieve 
their goal without reversing a preference, is a meaningful and reasonable 
guarantee.

Of course, with some proposed methods that meet WDSC, those voters need only 
vote some compromise candidate equal to their favorite. Then, if the method 
is a rank method, maybe they could alternate "=" and ">" for their lower 
rankings if they want to, or they could use ">" and "=" to spell out "WDSC" 
in Morse code if they want to. But the fact that they could do that if they 
want to, as long as they vote some compromise equal to their favorite, has 
no bearing on the reasonableness or unreasonableness of the requirement that 
they not have to reverse a preference.

Now, maybe you'd like to hypothesize a method with which, under certain 
conditions, the _only_ way that that majority can keep some Y from winning 
would be for them to alternately vote "=" and ">", or to use ">" and "=" to 
spell out "WDSC" in Morse code. Silly? Sure. Would that be a silly method? 
Of course. Would that mean that the guarantee that those voters don't have 
to reverse a preference in order to make someone lose is not a meaningful or 
reasonable guarantee. No.

By the way, aside from all that, it isn't quite clear why you think it's 
silly to equal-rank. But, silly though equal-ranking may be, it's  less 
silly than reversing a preference. WDSC guarantees that a majority who 
prefer X to Y can make Y lose without being silly to the degree of reversing 
a preference.

Though I consider voting system reform to be important, I don't do it with 
any goal about achieving any particular result or outcome. I do it just 
because I like to. As I said, what happens then, what someone else does or 
doesnt do, is not my department. Part of the fun is finding out what of 
entertaining opposing arguments I get.

One thing that I've been finding out is that tradition is very important to 
some people. It's remarkable and surprising the lengths to which some people 
will go, the kinds of arguments that they'll try. That's more entertaining 
than any episode of _Survivor_. Well, I'm fairly sure of that, though I must 
admit that I've never watched _Survivor_.

Mike Ossipoiff

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