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

[Jobst Heitzig]

Dear Juho,

> OK. I interpret this to mean that "sincerity"
> referred to the sincere opinion that might
> not even exist. 

I did not mean to say the voter has no opinion. He may well hold the opinion that, say, A is much better than B in some respect, and B is much better than A in another respect, so that neither is A preferable to B nor B to A nor are they equivalent (equally preferable). This is just an ordinary case of what some people pejoratively call "incomplete" preferences. Or the voter may hold the opinion that A is better than B in two of three respects, B is better than C in two of three respects, and C is better than A in two of three respects, so that A is strictly preferable to B, B to C, and C to A. This would be a case of "complete" but cyclic preferences. Or, even more simple, A and B may just be completely equivalent, so that neither is preferable to the other. In all these cases, a "favourite" is inexistent, not just unknown. 

> For a voter that doesn't have a sincere
> opinion it is also difficult to vote in any
> way (not just sincerely). 

Again, I talk about voters who *do* have sincere opinions which however happen do not fall into the narrow set of possible opinions the voting method's designer cared to take serious. The problem is on the designer's side, not on the voter's. One must not assume that such thiings as "favourites" always exist or that preferences are complete or transitive as long as one cannot prove that this is indeed the case for all voters. And by "prove" I don't mean "show its validity in some arbitrary narrow-minded economic model of utility".

One does not have all these problems when one avoids to speak of "sincere" votes!

Yours, Jobst

> --- On Wed, 21/1/09, Jobst Heitzig <heitzig-j at web.de> wrote:
> 
> > From: Jobst Heitzig <heitzig-j at web.de>
> > Hi Juho!
> > 
> > > What is the problem with
> > > sincerity in Plurality?
> > 
> > Well, that's simple: Any voter who does not have a
> > unique favourite option (whether that is because of
> > indifference or uncertainty or because of cyclic
> > preferences) cannot vote "sincerely" in Plurality!
> > 
> > Yours, Jobst
> 
> 
> 
> .... and the older mail ...
> 
> 
> --- On Fri, 16/1/09, Jobst Heitzig <heitzig-j at web.de> wrote:
> 
> > To determine how I should vote, is that quite complicated
> > or does it depend on what I think how others will vote?
> >
> > Or is my optimal way of voting both sufficiently easy to
> > determine from my preferences and independent of the other
> > voters?
> >
> > If the latter is the case, the method deserves to be called
> > "strategy-free". The whole thing has nothing to do
> > with "sincerity". Refering to
> > "sincerity", that concept in itself being
> > difficult to define even for methods as simple as Plurality,
> > complicates the strategy discussion unnecessarily.
> 
> Are you looking for the English language
> meaning of sincerity or some technical
> definition of it (e.g. some voting related
> criterion)? What is the problem with
> sincerity in Plurality?
> 
> Juho
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>       
> 
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