[EM] Dave: Emphatic preferences in Approval

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

I"d said:

>In a posting some days ago I pointed out that, with pairwise-count, if 
>voting is sincere and more prefer X to Y than Y to X, then X will beat Y 
>pairwise.  And that, in Approval, if more people emphatically prefer X to Y 
>than Y to X, then Y can't win, because X will outpoll Y.
>
>I pointed out that, in that way, by emphatic preference, Approval matches 
>what Condorcet does.

You replied:

That is no more useful than measuring hair color, when the task depends on
muscle.

I reply:

Come again? That depends on what the task is. If the task involves ordinary 
preferences, then emphatic preferences don't help the task. In particular, 
if the task is to minimize strategy need, then the ordinary preferences 
counted by MDDA will do a better job than the emphatic preferences counted 
by Approval.

But that doesn't mean that emphatic preferences aren't valid or meaningful. 
In a way they're more meaningful. In a strategy-free sincere-voting society, 
where people don't care about optimizing the outcome for themselves, but 
only care about the greater good, and want to vote sincerely, and have the 
election maximize social utility, then the emphatic preferences of Approval 
are more important than ordinary bare preferences.

Because, if the task is to count the strongest preferences, and not count a 
weak preference equal to a strong one, then Approval is what accomplishes 
the task.

You continued:

For that matter and your measurements, does not Plurality land in the same
ballpark?

I reply:

Go for it. Define a type of pairwise prefernce based on that.  But I don't 
think it would mean as much, since Plurality doesn't allow a voter to rate 
all the candidates.

Mike Ossipoff

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