[Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris Benham)

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 02:45 PM 6/24/2008, Juho wrote:
>On Jun 24, 2008, at 3:10 , Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
>
>>>  Or if A and B are the strongest candidates then maybe
>>>strategically A=10, B=0, C=0.
>>
>>>  In Approval the voter might vote A=1,
>>>B=0, C=0. Or if B and C are the strongest candidates then maybe A=1,
>>>B=1, C=0.
>>
>>If it were me, I might be buying tickets out of the country. That
>>is *really* bad. *Sincere normalized rating, unmodified by election
>>probabilities, is almost zero.*
>>
>>Voters with utilities like this, if they believe A doesn't have a
>>prayer, tend to not vote.
>
>Note that the utilities of B and C were 123 and 99. I didn't anchor
>the scale in any way but numbers around 100 could still be "above
>average politician".

"Above average" among what sample? Certainly not this one!

>I think three frontrunners is not a very distant scenario. I also
>think spoilers are quite possible in Range and Approval. Some spoiler
>scenarios were already mentioned in this thread. You also already
>replied to Chris Benham on the McCain-Obama-Clinton example in
>another mail (and therefore I'll try to be brief here).

While three frontrunners is certainly possible in theory, it's rare 
in a two-party system, it happens in certain ways.