[EM] Range Voting "unbeatable"?

[Juho]

On Aug 31, 2009, at 4:10 PM, Warren Smith wrote:

> On 8/31/09, Raph Frank <raphfrk at gmail.com> wrote:


>> What you could do is take a "poll" and have 10 random voters.  You
> then work out optimal assuming that they are the electorate.
>
> --there is no such thing as "optimal strategy" in games with >=3
> players. Game theory breaks down.  So, in general, this cannot be
> done.  The only way to do it is to add to game theory some other
> ingredient, such as some model of how the other voters act
> (which will thenbe, in fact, false, since it isn't the way YOU are  
> acting!).

I think there is no need for exact mathematical models and results  
here. Some credible heuristic algorithms that model the voter  
behaviour will do, just like in your simulations. The voters  
themselves must be able to use such heuristic (or exact, if available)  
models to decide if and how to vote strategically. If one can not give  
them such simple guidance (or if the party strategists (or media) can  
not recommend some appropriate strategy to them) then they might  
simply not apply strategies. And if no good strategy can be found,  
then you may assume that those voters might indeed not vote  
strategically in the election and election method in question although  
they might in principle be willing to apply strategies to win the  
election.

This approach of course may also lead to having different percentage  
of strategic voting in different methods instead of having the same  
fixed percentage of strategic voters in each method.

Juho