[EM] PR for USA or UK

[Kevin Venzke]

Hi Toby,

--- En date de : Lun 25.7.11, Toby Pereira <tdp201b at yahoo.co.uk> a écrit :
>But to summarise a 
>possibility - everyone submits their range ballots. Then the computer
>calculates what would be the winning set of candidates under these 
>votes. Then each ballot is looked at again by the computer and it 
>works out the "optimum" vote for each voter on the basis of what 
>everyone else has done. These new votes are then "submitted". 
>Obviously everyone's changes at once so the goalposts move. But 
>they could be recalculated a few times, and it might approach some 
>form of equilibrium. But I'm not entirely sure at the moment how you
>would decide the optimum vote for someone based on the current 
>situation. I'll think about it though.

Actually we are discussing this sort of thing in the automated approval
posts.

The problem (if it is a problem) is that if this method does a good 
job, you will (in the single-winner case) get a Condorcet method, or 
very close. Because, even if you only like a candidate 3/10, if that 
is the best candidate you can hope for, the method will still "decide"
that you should get behind that candidate and help him win.

Really, I think Approval and Range work this way anyway, just without
a computer.

>What I like about the range ballot here is that it sets out in 
>advance each voter's preference for whole sets of candidates. It 
>would work on the basis that how a voter rates a set of candidates is 
>realted to their total score given to them. So if there are two to be 
>elected then two candidates they give 5 out of 10 to is the same 
>as a 10 and a 0. I would set that out as how the scores are 
>essentially defined. With ranks I don't know if 1st and 4th is 
>better or worse than 2nd and 3rd.

Yes, that's nice. There are Condorcet methods that use this data to
resolve cycles and deter certain strategies. But I don't know of a
method that uses this data, in an effective way, to elect candidates
who are somehow different in quality from Condorcet winners.

Kevin Venzke