[EM] IRV vs Plurality

[Jameson Quinn]

2010/1/27 Abd ul-Rahman Lomax <abd at lomaxdesign.com>

> At 08:51 AM 1/27/2010, Jameson Quinn wrote:
>
>> 2010/1/26 Abd ul-Rahman Lomax <<mailto:abd at lomaxdesign.com>
>> abd at lomaxdesign.com>
>>
>>
>> The typical error is in assuming some "strategic" faction which votes
>> sensibly, when everyone else votes in a way that they will regret if they
>> discover the result they cause.
>>
>> You can't study history for two minutes without finding significant groups
>> of people (that is, ~5% fractions, not "everyone else") behaving in ways
>> they come to regret later. This is unavoidable human nature, and
>> acknowledging it is no error.
>>
>
> Now, is the voting system supposed to protect them from their stupidity?
>

It isn't necessarily stupidity. It could be ethics, or genuine lack of
available information.

It's not just protecting them. It's protecting the majority of which they
form a part.

And every other serious voting system would do so.

So yes.


>
> We were not talking about a minor faction voting that way,
>

My example had showed how even large advantages could, theoretically, be
overruled by uneven strategy. But I keep insisting, and you keep not
hearing, that that's just to illustrate a point. For something more
realistic, consider my example as the middle 10%, with 45% bullet voters on
either side. In that case, 49% strategic voters are overcoming 45% strategic
and 6% unstrategic voters. It's easy to change the numbers so that even 47%
strategic voters (with 2% unstrategic ones on their side) can overcome the
same odds, and still be overturning the true Range winner.



> ....
>
> Look, I would not dump full-blown Range on an electorate.
>

OK, I guess you do get it. So why do you keep arguing with me?

Without the uneven strategy problem, "full-blown Range" would be, hands
down, the best (single-winner) voting system possible, and the EM list's
days would be numbered until we all just agreed on that and went home.
Because of this problem, Range is not perfect, and there is still a lot to
talk about here.

Jameson Quinn
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