[Election-Methods] RE : Corrected "strategy in Condorcet" section

[Juho]

On Aug 14, 2007, at 4:23 , Kevin Venzke wrote:

>> I'm trying to find examples that would be damaging to
>> margins in the sense that they would occur often in typical
>> elections,
>
> Is it not pretty damaging if voters don't trust the method to deal  
> with
> votes for weak candidates?

It is not good if the voters don't trust the method, for whatever  
reason. I'm not yet convinced that that particular case would become  
an issue to the voters in real life.

I already commented the 49 24 27 scenario but I may come back when I  
have some new material.

>> I'll try to find some (more) problem free set of votes for such a
>> situation. (Success not guaranteed.)
>
> I don't understand what you're saying. What good can it do to show a
> scenario where there *isn't* a problem?

I referred to credibility problems in the presented scenarios, not to  
problems to the voters/election.

> It doesn't matter if voters have different understandings; it only  
> matters
> that a voter believes their own understanding is close enough.
>
> It's a rather moot point in any case since just because a voter may
> not realize they should use favorite betrayal doesn't mean that they
> didn't *need* to.

The sum of all this matters and has impact on where strategies are a  
problem and where not.

>> Planning to analyse this with "realistic" votes.
>
> What good is it. Voters can't foresee whether an election is going to
> turn out "realistic."

Didn't get the point. I think real-life elections typically have  
realistic votes. If not, then people might call that a miracle. And  
they might base their strategic fears on that. But I guess you didn't  
mean this.

>>> In the first round you vote FOR one candidate. You also vote
>>> AGAINST one
>>> candidate. If someone has more than half of the FOR votes, they are
>>> elected. If someone has more than half of the AGAINST votes, they  
>>> are
>>> disqualified. Then the second round is between the two candidates  
>>> with
>>> the most FOR votes who have not been disqualified.
>>
>> I'm always a bit careful with the "against" votes. If there are e.g.
>> three strong parties the supporters of the other parties might vote
>> the candidate of one party out.
>
> ???

My comment was indeed quite confusing. I guess I was in a hurry to  
reach the end of the mail.

This method doesn't seem to be as bad with negative votes as some  
other methods are but there are some risks e.g. in the following  
example. There are three candidates with first place support 40 A, 30  
B, 30 C. Later preferences are not strong. B supporters notice that  
if the final round will be between B and A it looks quite probable  
that A would win. Therefore they give their AGAINST vote to A. C  
supporters follow the same logic. A gets >50% AGAINST votes. The  
problem is that the AGAINST votes were strategic and not sincere  
(many of them at least). A could have been the best candidate (with  
40% support).

Juho




		
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