[Election-Methods] Schudy--Clarifying a few things about the example

[Michael Ossipoff]

Warren Schudy--

In your example, there's a candidate, Hitler, who is so despicable that only 
two people, out of the entire electorate, vote for him. Your example would 
work the same if there were 100 million voters, with only two Hitler voters.

You have one of the largest factions upranking Hitler to 2nd place. When 
they do that, of course he's no longer a two-vote candidate, and those 
voters mustn't be surprised if they elect him.

And, if the other large faction truncates, refuses to rank the reversers' 
candidate, then the reversers will elect Hitler, if the truncators beat 
their candidate pairwise. What's their chance of benefitting from the 
reversal? Only if the two big factions are in a pairwise tie. If the 
reversers' candidate beats the truncators' candidate, then the reversal 
isn't necessary anyway. So the chance of actually benefitting from the 
reversal, when there's truncation defense, is negligible.  The reversers are 
_incomparably_ more likely to elect Hitler than benefit from the truncation.

In your paper, and your posting, you speak of that election of Hitler as a 
disadvantage of Condorcet.
No, deterrence is an advantage of Condorcet.

Yes, the fact that the Blues could even conceivablyl benefit by something 
that could also elect a two-voter Hitler is a little embarrassment. But, as 
I said, the best rank methods have so many valuable properties that a little 
embarrassment is acceptable. Especially because the event will never happen, 
because it's so well deterred. That last fact is worth emphasizing.

I like to point out that the only way you can benefit from offensive 
order-reversal in Condorcet, MDDA or MAMPO is if your intended victims rank 
your candidate. You can steal the election from them only if they're trying 
to help you. Doesn't that make you proud of yourself?

Offensive order-reversal is the nearest thing to a strategy problem in 
Condorcet, MDDA and MAMPO, but it is not a problem.

Mike Ossipoff