[EM] DH3 pathology, margins, and winning votes

[RLSuter at aol.com]

To make a dire warning about how "DH3 pathology" could
cause "massive destruction" if any of the voting methods
that are theoretically susceptible to it are used is little more
than a rhetorical ploy (whether or not consciously intended
as one) to back up the author's passionately held view that
range voting is the single best of all single winner voting
methods. What is most lacking in this and other discussions
on this list about strategic voting is empirical data about
how people vote in actual public elections in which different
voting methods are used. Until there is much more such
evidence than is now available, conjectures about how
people might vote given different methods and different
combinations of candidates don't jusfity anything like
this kind of hyperbolic rhetoric. If the point is to make
arguments that are logically compelling, such rhetoric
is not merely unhelpful but extremely counterproductive.

-Ralph Suter

In a message dated 8/26/06, wds at math.temple.edu writes:

<< Perhaps you all will have some comments.  I'm quite sure I have not 
included all
 the wisdom about wv versus margin that EM has accumulated.   But on the
 other hand I also feel those at EM have underestimated or trivialized the 
power of
 the DH3 pathology to cause massive destruction.
 Warren D Smith
 http://RangeVoting.org >>