[EM] "Market based voting" paradigm. Revolutionary(?) design idea for multiwinner election schemes.

[Warren Smith]

> One possible problem of the market paradigm is this: in a market, there
> are buyers and sellers. The market finds a clearing price so that supply
> balances demand. While the exchange of money can be emulated on one end
> by the voters providing "money", it is not clear for what the candidates
> use that money.

--they don't. Unlike in 'asset voting' the candidates in this system
are uninvolved.
They are passive participants, it is like buying a pizza.  Do we
complain "it is not clear for what the pizzas use the money they
receive?" No.  It's a nutty question.

> Or take an auction. An auction is a method to pair sellers (who provide
> some good) with buyers (who have money) so that the sellers get as much
> money as possible for the goods that they sell. The theoretical optimal
> auction finds the best such set of pairings. But in a multiwinner
> election context, if votes are money, then why should the candidates
> want to get as much money as possible?

--because pseudomoney=votes, and more votes==> you get elected.

>They only need to pass a
> threshold to get on the council - any more voting power is simply
> wasted, because no candidate can hold more than one seat.

--well, with my Vickreyized rules, which I assume you are speaking of,
    http://rangevoting.org/MarketBasedVoting.html
the "threshhold" is the 2nd-price bid, and
there is no payment beyond that threshhold so nothing is "wasted."
(I.e. note, a huge bid does not necessarily result in a huge payment
because the payments are based on the 2nd-price bid, in Vickrey
auctions.)

--

Look at it like this.  Consider various items being auctioned in succession.
People bid for the items.
Somebody wins auction#5 and hence purchases item#5.  Fine.  Do we now
complain "it is not clear why item#5 wants more money?"  No.   Do we
complain "it is not clear why item#5 should get more money than
item#7?" No.  Nobody ever makes those complaints.

I don't see why you are making these complaints.

Electing seat#5 to be the person you want, is like winning auction#5
so you can buy item#5.   Each seat is auctioned to the highest bidder
(in pseudomoney=votes).
That winning bidder-set gets to choose who will occupy that seat, and
must pay for this privilege by losing pseudomoney.

The sole difference between the seat-elections and auction-purchase
stories is the fact that in the former story, the "winning bidder" is
not a single person, it is a collection
of them.   If you want to criticize this voting system, you need
either to focus on
this one difference, or you need to explain what is so horribly wrong
with auctions and why they are devastating for our economy.

I don't see anything horribly wrong with auctions and don't think they
are devastating.
If you don't either, focus instead on the difference and its implications.

-- 
Warren D. Smith
http://RangeVoting.org  <-- add your endorsement (by clicking
"endorse" as 1st step)
and
math.temple.edu/~wds/homepage/works.html