[EM] What is the ideal election method for sincere voters?

[Juho]

On Mar 5, 2007, at 6:41 , Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:

>> It is also questionable if it always makes sense to select the
>> favourite alternatives of those votes that have strong feelings and
>> not to respect the opinions of voters with milder feelings that much.
>
> If we were deciding a series of choices, and the "strong" and  
> "mild" feeling voters were always the same people, then, I'd  
> suggest, as the strong got their way each time, the "mild" voters  
> would begin to consider themselves unjustly deprived. They would  
> become strong in their feelings and votes. Unless they agreed that  
> that the "strong" getting what they want was just.

You are getting dangerously close to the often stated claim that  
Range would turn to Approval in the presence of insincere voter  
groups. :-)

> I don't think that Condorcet methods were developed to maximize  
> utility; rather I think that the idea of the pairwise winner was  
> seen as intuitively correct.

Probably a typical person studying Condorcet does not see it as a  
better utility function than Range. I believe it is typical that  
Condorcet sympathies are based on its ability to reach pretty good  
utility and strategy resistance at the same time.

Maybe many also think that due to the varying sincere preference  
strengths it is better to give each voter one vote (all of same  
strength) (=one man one vote principle) (A>B>C means A>B, A>C and  
B>C, all with strength 1). This can be considered ideal by some  
although this does not aim at maximising utility but at minimising  
the number of voters that are unhappy (=never mind how unhappy they  
are) with the selection. (Condorcet typically compares only one  
pairwise decision at a time, which may be considered a weakness, but  
I leave that discussion to another time.)

Juho


		
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