[EM] Condorcet How?

[Juho]

On Apr 9, 2010, at 3:03 AM, Kevin Venzke wrote:

> Hi Juho,
>
> --- En date de : Jeu 8.4.10, Juho <juho4880 at yahoo.co.uk> a écrit :
>>> I more or less despise the election of A in this
>> scenario:
>>>
>>> 49 A
>>> 24 B
>>> 27 C>B
>>>
>>> I believe the possibility of this outcome is a
>> disincentive for a candidate
>>> like C to run.
>>
>> The story behind these votes seems to be that C is
>> ideologically close to B and its nomination makes A win
>> instead of B. If C is ideologically close to B why don't the
>> "B" voters vote "B>C" (and make C win)?
>
> Because the story is that C is not considered an established candidate
> (or a frontrunner), and the B voters (if they actually prefer C, which
> is not something I mean to suggest) will not condescend to rank C.
> Depending on the method, they could hand the election to C by  
> ranking C,
> and/or alternatively compel C supporters to not vote sincerely.

Ok, but the story is not quite flawless yet.

Case 1: "B" voters did not notice C. B had 51 supporters before the  
nomination of C. All that heard of C changed their opinion to "C>B".  
If C is so obviously better than B then also some of the "A" voters  
should have voted "A>C" (or "A>C" if they feel the other way around  
for some reason). But it seems that also they did not notice C. It is  
also strange that someone can get 27% support (clearly more support  
than B) and still be unknown to so many of the voters.

Case 2: "B" voters did notice C and liked C but didn't want to vote  
for C. In this case the votes are not sincere but twisted for some  
psychological reasons. (Also some part of "A" voters should have  
ranked B or C if they noticed C.)

It seems that the role of non-informed voters and/or non-sincere/ 
mutinous voters and the surprising emergence of candidate C have a  
strong role in the story, and all the blame (of not following the  
story (and intended outcome) that was discussed above) can not be put  
on margins alone.

>
> The best scenario is for C to be able to run, be voted for  
> sincerely, and
> either win, or not affect the outcome at all.

Yes, that would be ideal.

>
>> If C is
>> ideologically far from B then most "B" voters may vote as
>> they do now, but then maybe "A" voters should vote "A>B"
>> (and make B win) (since C seems to be closer to B than A).
>> It is hard to find an explanation to sincere votes like
>> this. Or are these maybe strategic votes, e.g. so that
>> sincere "A>B" voters have decided to vote "A"?
>
> The A voters will not vote A>B because A and B are considered the
> frontrunners. (i.e. that is the scenario that concerns me.)

Yes but also this means that "A" voters are badly misinformed when  
none of them have heard of C or believe that C is weak although C has  
27% first place support (clearly more than B) and all that heard of C  
"on the B side" voted for C.

>
>>> Fundamentally, if I said only one thing: I don't
>> believe that the margins
>>> ranking of defeat strength (resulting from its
>> treatment of unranked
>>> candidates) is in agreement with what voters would
>> expect and want.
>>
>> What would you consider to be a better approach than
>> margins for sincere votes? (winning votes has also scenarios
>> that may be questioned)
>
> Maybe Range? I guess I don't see that question as interesting or  
> useful.

Yes, Range could be considered more ideal at least for some uses (when  
one wants to maximize the sum of utilities) (there are also other  
alternatives like minimizing harm to some and seeking majority). The  
problem of course is that it is so difficult to collect sincere  
ratings. I think the question is important since performance with  
sincere votes (= elect the correct winner) is important.

>
>> (Note btw that in another mail I just mentioned also the
>> possibility of allowing B and C to formally team up so that
>> defeats within their team would not be considered as severe
>> as defeats between A and the team.)
>
> This doesn't interest me much (same as Forest's suggestion of pre-
> election agreements in DYN) because I'm not interested in the case  
> that
> a single party (for all practical purposes) nominates two candidates.
> I don't think that will normally happen or be desirable under any
> method. What I'm concerned with is the viability of a "third" option  
> and
> voting for the third option.

I don't believe such strong methods like teaming would be generally/ 
typically needed. But if there are problems then teaming may be a good  
way to overcome them (they may e.g. quite efficiently cut out any  
strategy considerations). I also understand that in some environments  
all "agreements between parties" may be considered to represent too  
much some "spirit of old times".



In summary, maybe the "third" party explanation is more what you are  
after than the "not heard of C" explanation. In the example "B" and  
"A" voters were maybe from some old established parties and they did  
not want to recognize the emergence of a "third" new strong candidate.  
I believe such problems may well be temporary. If one adopts a new  
method that allows also "third" candidates to run in a meaningful way  
and with real chances to win if they have strong enough support, then  
I'd guess the attitude and problems of ignoring them and not ranking  
them could fade out very soon. The two main contenders and voters that  
support them can not pretend any more that other candidates do not  
exist (one can e.g. not play down a candidate with 27% of the first  
preference votes).

Juho



>
> Kevin Venzke
>
>
>
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