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

[Juho Laatu]

--- On Mon, 26/1/09, Jonathan Lundell <jlundell at pobox.com> wrote:

> On Jan 25, 2009, at 12:40 AM, Juho Laatu wrote:
> 
> > What I mean is that it may quite OK
> > to assume that people are able to
> > find some preference order when
> > voting. And therefore we can force
> > them to do so.
> 
> If we regard the preference order as list of contingent
> choices (this view has come up in IRV discussions), then the
> ability to vote in a plurality election implies the ability
> to produce such a list, as long as the voter regards a
> sincere ranking as optimal--say that the voter's (lack
> of or imperfect) information together with the voting rule
> makes strategizing counterproductive--the ranking just
> becomes a sequence of first choices contingent on the
> earlier-listed candidates being excluded.

Yes, already some very basic features
of human behaviour and ability to form
opinions seem to allow us to assume
that voters are able to create
transitive orderings (and maybe
opinion and preference strengths too).

And if these generated opinions are
based only on the pre-existing sincere
opinions of the voters then we could
consider also the created opinions to
be sincere.

Juho