[Election-Methods] USING Condorcet

[Kevin Venzke]

Hi Rob,

--- En date de : Mer 2.7.08, rob brown <rob at karmatics.com> a écrit :
> De: rob brown <rob at karmatics.com>
> Objet: Re: [Election-Methods] USING Condorcet
> À: election-methods at electorama.com
> Date: Mercredi 2 Juillet 2008, 13h42
> Hi Kevin, pardon me for jumping in, I saw something you said
> that I wanted
> to hear some clarification on because i have heard it
> regularly as a
> complaint re: condorcet....

By the way, I'm not complaining about Condorcet here.

I guess you're talking about the camp that believes that voters will use
burial strategy for no reason at all. I can't say that they wouldn't,
but that isn't my position.

> On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 12:19 PM, Kevin Venzke
> <stepjak at yahoo.fr> wrote:
> 
> > --- En date de : Mar 1.7.08, Juho
> <juho4880 at yahoo.co.uk> a écrit :
> > > I also think that the probability of successful
> strategic
> > > voting in
> > > large public elections is very small in
> Condorcet.
> >
> > It doesn't have to be successful. Backfiring
> strategy is a problem too. A
> > given voter simply being able to imagine how the
> strategy could work is a
> > problem.
> 
> 
> Maybe I misunderstood your statement, but it seems to say
> "even if it is an
> unwise strategy, the fact that people may do it anyway is a
> matter of
> concern".  Given that:

No, that's not what I meant to imply. There's a difference between a
strategy that is unwise and a strategy that may be wise but happens to
backfire.

> My take (and this is based on what I consider to be the
> theoretical
> underpinnings of classical economics and game theory), is
> that there are two
> possibilities to be concerned about:
> 
> a)  a prisoner's dilemma situation: 

I don't understand in what context you want to be concerned about a
prisoner's dilemma? Is this for election methods in general?

> b) a situation where people's self interest is in
> conflict with some other
> goal, in particular, their sense of ethics.
>
> I don't see your scenario -- voting
> strategically/selfishly but in an unwise
> way -- to fit into either a or b, so I see it as issue of
> minor concern, at
> least in the long term.

If people rank the worse of two frontrunners strictly last, just because
that "feels right," I would categorize that under B. But this isn't my
scenario.

The scenario is more like "chicken." If I think you will be sincere, then
I should bury your candidate. If I think you're going to bury my candidate,
then (if I only care about who wins) I should vote sincerely. Or else I
can be stubborn and bury your candidate, thereby refusing to let you bury 
my candidate and get away with it. When we both bury, then we crash and
elect the worst candidate.

When truncation works (under the method), and voters can be expected to
use it, the game changes. Burial becomes, in my opinion, too dangerous,
because for it to work and not backfire, you need the rival voters to
specify a lower preference for the worse frontrunner without them having 
any strategic incentive to do so.


My response to Juho's last two posts is just that I think an election
method should behave properly even in simple scenarios. I don't think
simple scenarios will just disappear when Condorcet is introduced.

Kevin Venzke



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