[Election-Methods] Response to Schudy re Range vs Approval voting

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 02:01 AM 8/7/2007, Juho wrote:
[I wrote:]
>>Most election methods would give this election to Gore, period.
>>Gore is the Condorcet winner. But Nader is arguably the best
>>winner. In a situation like this, I'd trigger a runoff between Gore
>>and Bush.

That was a typo. I meant Gore and Nader, of course.


>>This constant argument that Range gives too much power to extreme
>>voters is truly bizarre.
>
>Bush and Gore have the same number of first preference votes and the
>voters are planning to give (maybe strategically) max and min votes
>to these candidates. Nader supporters however seem to prefer Gore to
>Bush, which makes the Gore position stronger.

As it should. Terming the giving of max and min votes to the 
favorite/worst among the frontrunners "strategic" is misleading. We 
use the term "normalized" for this because it doesn't have the 
implications of "strategic," which with other methods refers, 
generally, to reversing preferences. It is *never* strategically 
advantageous in Range to reverse preferences. Now, Range+PW, I'll 
call it, is a hybrid method, so theoretically, in the Condorcet side, 
there could be strategic motivation. However, that would be giving up 
the Range side. While certainly I have not done an exhaustive 
analysis, I seriously doubt that reversal motivation exists in the 
combination method. Hmm.... maybe a little. A vote of 99 and a vote 
of 100 are almost the same in Range, trivial difference. *If* there 
were certain conditions, it's conceivable that one would reverse 
these.... but it doesn't seem very plausible to me.

>With the given numbers (that are maybe from a poll)

No, these were intended to be election results, I think.

>  this will be a
>very close race and therefore anything can happen at the election
>day. But if we assume that the given numbers will hold the Gore
>supporters have a strategic option to give Nader 0 points and win.
>Isn't this giving more power to Gore supporters if they are more
>extreme?

But they vastly outnumber the Nader supporters. "Giving them a 
strategic advantage" is a strange terminology for using a method that 
*allows* them to rate Nader highly enough that, together with the 
Republicans, they could allow Nader to win. Nader only has a chance 
if the Gore supporters actually think he is good, enough of them. 
Note, again, I don't think Juho has picked up on this, the Gore votes 
may be all over the spectrum, with some almost favoring Nader and 
some rating him zero. Who in the world is to say that any of these 
votes is insincere?

Giving someone rating points is giving them votes. Range 100 is like 
having 100 votes, to cast in an Approval election. If Range gives 
some putative advantage to "strategic voters," so too does Approval, 
to blocks of same. It is an imaginary objection to Range, accusing it 
of fomenting what other methods *require*.

And Range+PW really does provide the best of both worlds, and the 
retention of pairwise significance should encourage some degree of 
discrimination in the votes. I.e., pure exaggeration, voting Approval 
style, is giving up the power of the pairwise comparison. So those 
Gore supporters, most of them, would not rate Nader at zero. They 
would rate him, perhaps at 1 or more, thus showing preference, but 
very little Range power.