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

[Jonathan Lundell]

On Feb 22, 2011, at 8:20 AM, Kathy Dopp wrote:
> 
> On Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 11:06 AM, Jonathan Lundell <jlundell at pobox.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Hmm. I think you missed my next sentence.
>> 
>>> Burial works against compromise by encouraging voters to rank the potential compromise candidate last.
>> 
> 
> Again, voters do *not* try to bury their 2nd choice compromise
> candidates, but try to bury their last choice candidates,

Ranking one's last-choice candidate last is not burial.

> or their
> last choice mainstream candidate, and would prefer that any other
> candidate wins. As Jonathan noted "burial is a simple, intuitive and
> attractive strategy that can be easily employed by relatively naive
> voters."
> 
> Or are you claiming that voters are all hopelessly idiotic and would
> prefer that their last choice candidate wins as long as their
> compromise candidate can be buried!?*!  The claim that voters would
> bury their compromise candidates is illogical drivel.

This, along with its simplicity, is the perversity of the burial strategy. Voters are given an incentive to do exactly that, because (with methods that are subject to burial), it improves the chances of their first-choice candidate.

Many voters do not view as idiotic sacrificing their compromise candidate in order to elect their first choice. (After all, under plurality, many voters sacrifice their first-choice candidate in order to elect their compromise; why is the reverse any more idiotic?)