[EM] Why the concept of "sincere" votes in Range is flawed.

[Juho Laatu]

--- On Wed, 26/11/08, Kevin Venzke <stepjak at yahoo.fr> wrote:

> From: Kevin Venzke <stepjak at yahoo.fr>
> Subject: Re: [EM] Why the concept of "sincere" votes in Range is flawed.
> To: election-methods at electorama.com
> Date: Wednesday, 26 November, 2008, 7:55 AM
> Hi Juho,
> 
> --- En date de : Mar 25.11.08, Juho Laatu
> <juho4880 at yahoo.co.uk> a écrit :
> > One approach to sincerity is to compare voter
> behaviour to
> > the requested behaviour. In Approval if the request is
> to
> > mark all candidates that one approves then placing the
> > cutoff between two main candidates is often
> insincere..
> > Approval is a special method from this point of view
> since
> > it is often described as requiring the voter to plan
> what is
> > the best strategic vote (where to put the cutoff).
> 
> I'm not sure that "requested behavior" is
> typically defined on the
> ballot.

Yes, probably not common. Also other messages
from the election organizer and media and
fellow voters may be vague.

> It is also far from obvious to me that Approval
> uniquely
> requires a strategic decision.

In the EM discussions people seem to assume
that at least one should put the cutoff between
some leading candidates. People seldom talk
about marking those candidates that one approves
(I have seen this approach however in some
mechanically generated ballots for simulations).
Don't know about real life.

> You can also argue either
> that FPP also
> asks for a strategic decision, or else that
> "approval" is supposed
> to refer to a real concept.

FPP (or actually some society that uses FPP) could
take the stance that voters are expected to pick
one of the two leading candidates in a two-party
country, which would make voting sincere.
Otherwise not voting for one's favourite minor
candidate could be seen as an insincere strategic
decision. In real life I think people generally
know that one should vote strategically in FPP,
so from this point of view the society expects a
simple strategy (don't vote for candidates that
don't have a chance) to be applied.

One interesting feature is protest votes. Many vote
for minor candidates although they know that their
vote will be "lost" (in the usual meaning of the
term that refers only to the outcome of these
elections). Protest votes do have a meaning outside
of this narrow interpretation (impacting the
outcome of this election) though.

> 
> You can easily deny that you have an internal concept of
> "approval,"
> but you can also deny that you have an internal transitive
> ranking
> of the candidates. Maybe it's harder to believe, but it
> can't be 
> disproven. (Though, I don't really think it is harder
> to believe, 
> since "approval" has a plain English meaning.)

It seems that voting method "Approval" has cut its
ties to English term "approval" (at least at the EM
list).

In ranking based methods EM people seem to assume
that voters have some easy to identify transitive
order of the candidates in their mind (=sincere
opinion).

I find it revealing that there is not much
discussion on the possibility to cast non-transitive
votes. Such votes would be strategically more
efficient than the transitive ones. Use of
transitive votes seem to reflect the idea that the
sincere opinion of a rational voter would always be
transitive. (Well, of course casting non-transitive
votes would be technically more challenging.)

Juho



> 
> Kevin Venzke
> 
> 
>       
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