[EM] Strategic Voting and Simulating It

[Kevin Venzke]

Hi Greg,

--- En date de : Mar 14.10.08, Greg Nisbet <gregory.nisbet at gmail.com> a écrit :
> I would like to know what is currently wrong with the
> strategic voting
> simulations.

I believe the simulations work like this:

Each voter's sincere utilities are determined randomly and independently,
which is problematic because it does not produce realistic scenarios. It
would be better to combine voters into factions, although it would be no
easier to reach consensus regarding what simulation is realistic.

Two frontrunner candidates are determined essentially at random, and this
information will be used by the strategic voters. This is problematic
because usually when a candidate is called a "frontrunner" this means
there is a perception that this candidate is likely to win, before any
strategy is used. When the frontrunners are determined randomly, this is
not realistic unless you hold a very pessimistic view about how a
candidate becomes a "frontrunner" in real life.

The strategic voters, in any rank ballot method, will simultaneously use
favorite betrayal compromise strategy and also burial strategy. There is
no calculation, or awareness of the specific election rule. The strategic
voters seem schizophrenic in that they are sufficiently paranoid about
losing their compromise choice that they will abandon any actually
preferred candidate, but at the same time they are sufficiently reckless
that they will rank the worse "frontrunner" dead last even though in
methods where this can be an effective strategy, it also creates a major
risk that the winner will be a candidate that nobody likes.

You could argue that real voters will be highly paranoid and/or reckless,
but to that extent, those are not "strategic" voters in my opinion.

No other strategies or information sources are simulated. Equality of 
preference and truncation are not implemented, so that many popular 
methods cannot even be tested without ignoring their capabilities.
Nomination (dis)incentives can't be examined either.

Kevin Venzke