[EM] Why care about later-no-harm or prohibiting candidate burial?

[Kevin Venzke]

Hi Kathy,

--- En date de : Lun 21.2.11, Kathy Dopp <kathy.dopp at gmail.com> a écrit :
> 1. later-no-harm prevents finding compromise candidates,
> and thus is
> not a desirable feature of a voting method, and

The whole point of it is to make it safe to express compromise choices.
Whether it is effective you can argue either way. I think it varies by
method.

> 2. if a voter tries to bury a candidate, then logically it
> can only be
> (unless the voter is acting against his own interests)
> because he
> would rather have any other candidate more than the
> candidate he tries
> to bury.

He's not acting against his own interests. Rather, he estimates that the
least liked candidate (used as a pawn) has no chance of winning, and he
can aid his favorite candidate by burying.

I don't think burial is always harmful. It's particularly bad if it can
"backfire" in that the candidate used as a pawn accidentally wins. It's
also not great if a faction fears that another will use burial strategy,
and as a result defensively withholds a compromise choice.

Kevin Venzke