[EM] Participation

[Kevin Venzke]

Hi Abd,

--- En date de : Sam 24.4.10, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax <abd at lomaxdesign.com> a écrit :
> This is what is common with the
> use of voting systems criteria to study methods. Scenarios
> are created, sometimes cleverly, to cause a failure of a
> criterion. Does it matter if those conditions never exist?
> It should.

For the simple question of whether the criterion is satisfied or failed,
no it doesn't. Of course people then do go on to disagree about whether
certain criteria are important, and why. There is nobody who thinks every
single criterion is important.

I don't think mono-add-top is very important. Markus probably doesn't
either.

> And now we come to my objection to Woodall's "harm"
> criteria. The consideration is whether a vote "harms a
> candidate," not whether or not it harms the *election,*
> i.e., the *electorate.*

If it does harm a candidate then it also harms the voter who added the
preference. He could (depending on many factors, reasonably or 
unreasonably) withhold lower preferences as a result, which means less
sincere voting. Usually sincere voting produces a better outcome, in
this case due to a greater amount of information provided. So ultimately
the good of the electorate is the consideration.

Honestly I don't know how one could advocate a criterion which provides
a guarantee arbitrarily to candidates or voters without any greater
purpose. You have to be able to say that "people in general" receive a
benefit from this criterion (all things being equal, of course).

Kevin Venzke