[EM] Rob: SFC and your 2nd statement

MIKE OSSIPOFF nkklrp at hotmail.com
Tue Oct 4 22:00:24 PDT 2005


Rob--

You wrote:

[2nd statement]

>"SFC requires that the majority of voters who prefer the Condorcet
>candidate to another particular candidate vote sincerely (neither
>falsify nor truncate their preferences), and it also requires that no
>other voter falsifies preferences"

If the second statement is false, I'd like to understand how the
"Strategy Free Criterion" can be truthfully called "Strategy Free".

I reply:

SFC's premise stipulates that the majority that it refers to vote sincerely, 
and that no one falsify preferences. That's probably what the abovequoted 
statement means, and, if so, then it is correct. But of course it is not a 
complete definition of SFC, and isn't even a complete statement of SFC's 
premise.

As I said, SFC describes plausible conditions under which voters don't need 
strategy in order to defeat someone they like less than the CW.

I said "..don't need strategy...".  That's the strategy-freeness that SFC 
describes and is named for.

About the electowiki, yes, delete that SFC definition that you quoted. 
Replace it with the one that I posted. I claim the right to say what SFC is, 
since I first proposed it:

So post this at the electowiki:

Strategy-Free Criterion (SFC):

If no one falsifies a preference, and if a majority prefer the CW to 
candidate Y, and vote sincerely, then Y shouldn't win.

[end of SFC definition]

And add this:

Of course, though it's convenient to word the criterion that way, it isn't 
really necessary that no one falsify a preference. It's only necessary that 
people don't falsify preferences in sufficient numbers to change the 
election result.

Mike Ossipoff

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