[EM] Why is Bayesian Regret the "Gold Standard"

[David Cary]

What is the justification for Bayesian Regret, as used in IEVS and
described at http://rangevoting.org/BayRegDum.html, being the
"uniquely right" metric, the "gold standard", for comparing different
election methods or varying election scenarios?

Why is the societal utility for a candidate the sum of the voters'
individual utilities for that candidate?  How does that avoid the
problems of being arbitrary or not well-defined, when making
interpersonal comparisons or summations of von Neumann-Morgenstern
utilities?  What is Bayesian about the resulting value, which is just
a difference in utility values?

Matthew Welland matt at kiatoa.com on Sun Mar 11 09:44:32 PDT 2007,
wrote: 
(http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2007-March/019827.html)

> ... I know I should be using  Bayesian Regret but a)  don't really
> understand it and ...

Warren Smith wds at math.temple.edu  on Fri Feb 9 13:06:01 PST 2007,
wrote:
(http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2007-February/019439.html)

> I happen to think Bayesian regret is a good metric, in fact the
> uniquely right metric, not "the wrong thing". 


 
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