[EM] Problem solved (for pure ranked ballot

[Michael Ossipoff]

Warren says:

So we have proven a sense in which range is superior to EVERY 
pure-rank-ballot
voting method...

I reply:

But all kinds of methods are better than eachother in some sense or other.

Warren continues:

Remaining Open question: what happens if we permit rank order votes to have
EQUALITIES in them?

I reply:

Surely Warren knows that all of our rank-method proposals allow eaual 
ranking.

It's one thing to say that RV is adequate for pubic elections (it is), but 
it's another thing to say that it's the best.

RV penalizes honest voting in the most transparent way, which I call the 
"sucker-abuse problem".
Sincere voters can be had by strategizing voters. In public elections one 
could say that that's ok, if sincere voting is more important to them than 
maximum-power voting. It doesn't really bother me in that application, in 
fact it could be beneficial for our public elections.  But  there are 
situations where you _wouldn't_ consider that problem ok.

Approval doesn't have that problem. There's little if any difference between 
a sincere ballot and a strategic ballot.

Rank methods can offer criterion compliances that RV can't offer. 
Rank-method-only criteria that I value, for instance, are SFC and SDSC, 
which, when complied with, greatly increase the degree to which voters are 
free from strategy considerations.

BeatpathWinner isn't needed for public elections, because, in public 
elections, where pairwise ties are vanishingly rare, 
Schwartz-Sequential-Dropping (SSD) gives the same result, and is more 
plausible and natural to propose.

For public elections, SSD would be my best suggestion.  Kevin's 
FBC-complying method offers more for the very most timid voters, while SSD 
offers a little more for voters influenced by hope rather than fear. I 
suggest that it's between those two, for the best public-election method. 
The choice would depend on the nature of the electorate. I feel that it's 
better to start out opimistic and offer SSD. But then it's also true that 
Kevin's method is simpler to define, and that can be a decisive concern.

Mike Ossipoff