[EM] Forced strictly-dishonest strategy is common in Schulze-beatpaths voting

Dan Bishop danbishop04 at gmail.com
Sat Jun 13 17:38:15 PDT 2009


Warren Smith wrote:
> I don't follow most of what you (Michael Poole) said.
> However, re your final paragraph
>
>   
>> So accepting, arguendo, that 75% of voters might -- a posteriori --
>> gain expected utility from strategic order reversal, to conclude how
>> they would feel about that requires an argument that they care more
>> about the vanishingly small gain in utility than they do about honesty
>> in voting.
>>     
>
> the answer is "exactly."
>
> I have news for you.   The concept of "strategic voting" is entirely
> about caring more about  vanishingly small gains in utility than about
> honesty.
>
> Now, if you wish to claim that strategic voting is unimportant or does
> not exist, then fine:
> There is no need for you to worry about this.
>
> However, oddly enough, poll evidence indicated that, e.g. 90% of
> honest-Nader-top
> voters voted for somebody else in 2000.   The chance that any
> particular such voter
> would, by her vote alone, alter the election result, was microscopic.
> (And indeed,
> as usual, it did not happen.   No individual vote has ever had the
> power to affect
> any statewide election in US history so far.)  As indeed, is
> essentially always true in any large election.
>
> As a result of such problems, many people formed the electorama list,
> trying to think of other voting methods that overcome this and related
> flaws in plurality voting.
> I'm surprised to hear you consider all that effort to be a waste of time because
> people are honest and would never be strategic.
You can't just assume that people would vote strategically in Schulze 
elections because they vote strategically in Plurality elections.



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