[EM] Will to Compromise

[Kristofer Munsterhjelm]

Raph Frank wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 1:05 AM, Greg Nisbet <gregory.nisbet at gmail.com> wrote:
>> The fallback method produces crappy candidates.
>> People are encouraged to compromise for crappy candidates.
>>
>> Also note that the method for determining the compromise is
>> majoritarian (to the extent that approval is) so the intermediate
>> compromise procedure is a red herring that produces some nasty
>> side-effects.
> 
> It isn't entirely.  There randomness creates an incentive to approve
> compromise candidates.  This means that it isn't like pure approval.
> A 55% bloc that refuses to compromise and thus wins the approval
> stage, will likely end up causing a compromise failure.  That is
> completely different to an approval election where a 55% bloc can
> guarantee a win.
> 
> I think that finding an acceptable compromise is an important point.
> The specific method is separate from the concept that you can allow
> voters to in effect trade their winning probability.
> 
> Strategy needs to be tested.  The example that was used was a 3
> candidate race, finding a compromise is harder when there is more
> candidates.

With more candidates, a minority might find that it needs to approve of 
a compromise with just slightly better expected value than random 
ballot, if the majority says that it's not going to pick a "compromise" 
closer to the minority than that just-slightly-better candidate.

That is, it would give an incentive to compromise early, under the 
threat that to do otherwise might make the method fall back to random 
ballot, and the compromise is better than random ballot even if it's not 
all that much better.