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

[Kathy Dopp]

On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 7:47 PM, Jameson Quinn <jameson.quinn at gmail.com> wrote:
> As I understand it, most people here don't really think that later-no-harm
> is desirable. Your argument that burial-resistance is undesirable, however,
> is simply untrue. A voter can bury B because she prefers A, and still regret
> the burial if C is elected.

Exactly.  This is why burial is a tactic that only makes any sense if
one buries his least favorite candidate or, better yet, the least
favorite mainstream party candidate (as Kristofer M. pointed out).

As Jonathan Lundell noted, "burial is a simple, intuitive and
attractive strategy that can be easily employed by relatively naive
voters", and it therefore ought to be allowed so that voters can try
to bury their least favorite mainstream candidate.

Burial ability is a good feature of voting systems, easily understood
by most voters, not a feature to be avoided.

I'm glad we seem to agree that later-no-harm is not a good feature of
a voting system because it prevents compromise.

-- 

Kathy Dopp
http://electionmathematics.org
Town of Colonie, NY 12304
"One of the best ways to keep any conversation civil is to support the
discussion with true facts."

Fundamentals of Verifiable Elections
http://kathydopp.com/wordpress/?p=174

Realities Mar Instant Runoff Voting
http://electionmathematics.org/ucvAnalysis/US/RCV-IRV/InstantRunoffVotingFlaws.pdf

View some of my research on my SSRN Author page:
http://ssrn.com/author=1451051