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[Kevin Venzke]

Hi Toby,

--- En date de : Dim 24.7.11, Toby Pereira <tdp201b at yahoo.co.uk> a écrit :
>Strategy-resistant systems do have certain advantages as you say, 
>but in the single-winner case it would end up reducing range to a 
>Condorcet method, which arguably isn't as good, and ends up pushing 
>out a "better-liked" candidate for one that strictly more people 
>prefer. And this is what I like about range - it's not just about 
>which candidates you prefer to which other ones, but by how much. 

I think the Range method itself is pretty incapable of this, but you
could do it either with rated ballots or with a rank ballot that has
truncation incentive.

>And as long as strategy isn't performed better by voters of some >candidates than others, the fact that there would still be some 
>honest voters would mean that the advantages of range would still 
>remain to an extent, meaning that overall better-liked candidates 
>stand a better chance, and it therefore reflects better the overall
>preferences of the electorate!

That paragraph makes sense if you're comparing Range to Approval, but 
not Range to anything else. If large numbers of voters use strategy in
Range (and I'm pretty sure they would be encouraged to; personally I
wouldn't need any encouraging) this will destroy so much information 
that the only way Range will win out is if the rank methods you compare
it to contain even more destructive incentives than Range has.

[begin quote]
>>On my website I give an example where party A has 68% of the support 
>>and party B 32%. There are two seats and so each party fields two 

>> Of course party A voters could 
>>coordinate themselves and split into two factions of 34% to take both 
>>seats, but this would be very hard for them to achieve. STV (Droop 
>>quota anyway) would transfer the votes above the quota accordingly 
>>so that party A would win both seats, and give what I would regard 
>>as the less fair result.

>Ok, but it's not obvious that it is less fair. You are according a
>privilege to the weaker party just because it is a different party.

I'm not according them a privilege because they are a different party, but because I would see it as logical and fair that 75% is a reasonable cut-off. If a system made the cut-off at 80%, I'd argue that it was unfair in favour of the smaller party.

[end quote]

Can you explain your position without saying "party"? Because if you 
didn't see the parties, and only saw voters, it would be indefensible 
to give a seat to the 32%. There would be nothing special about that 
group.

Kevin Venzke