[Election-Methods] Challenge: Elect the compromise when there'reonly 2 factions

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 12:23 AM 8/30/2007, Paul Kislanko wrote:
>If I understand the meaning of the original example correctly, the answer is
>Asset voting.
>
>Give every voter 100 points. By the conditions given, both the A and B
>voters think C is 80% as good as their true favorite, so give 5/9 of their
>points to their favorite and 4/9 to C.
>
>A's total is 55 x 5/9 = 275/9
>B's total is 45 x 5/9 = 225/9
>C's total is 55 x 4/9 + 45 x 4/9 = 100 x 4/9 = 400/9 so C wins.

Mr. Kislanko misunderstood the conditions of the problem. One of the 
conditions was that the voters were selfish. What is to stop tha A 
voters from giving all their points to A?

Range handles the problem quite well if voters vote sincerely. But 
the A voters, voting sincerely, are voting against their own 
interests. That's the problem. If they are "selfish," they will simply elect A.

I dislike, by the way, describing voters as selfish if they vote in 
their own interest. That's the default, they *should* vote in their 
own interest.

What I ended up suggesting was that the problem is resolved if the 
voters negotiate. It's possible to set up transfers of value (money?) 
such that the utilities are equalized, and that the benefit of 
selecting C is thus distributed such that the A voters do *not* lose 
by voting for C. If they vote for A, they get A but no compensation. 
If they vote for C, they get C plus compensation. If the utilities 
were accurate -- Juho claimed that they were *not* utilities, but 
that then makes the problem incomprehensible in real terms -- then 
overall satisfication is probably optimized by the choice of C with 
compensation to the A voters, coming from the C voters. Certainly the 
reverse is possible, that is, the A voters could pay the C voters 
compensation to elect A, but it would have to be much higher compensation!