[EM] PR-SODA? Try 2 (and 3)

[Jameson Quinn]

2011/7/26 Andy Jennings <elections at jenningsstory.com>

> Jameson Quinn wrote:
>
>>   Suggestions:
>>>>> - When a candidate is elected and you need to discard ballots, you
>>>>> could specify a more detailed preference order:
>>>>> 1. Ballots which delegated to that candidate
>>>>> 2. Ballots which bullet voted that candidate and didn't delegate
>>>>> 3. Ballots which approved two candidates
>>>>> 4. Ballots which approved three candidates
>>>>> 5. Ballots which approved four candidates
>>>>> 6. And so on.
>>>>> This eliminates ballots first which approve fewer candidates.  You may
>>>>> still have to select randomly within these tiers, but it gives an incentive
>>>>> for people to approve more candidates, which helps the method work better.
>>>>>  Right?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Well, up to a point. The problem would be if people approved a "no-hope"
>>>> candidate, just to puff up the number of approvals on their ballot. This is
>>>> a form of "Woodall free riding", and it could lead to DH3-type pathologies
>>>> in the worst case. I'd rather not go there.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Good point.  Although if there do happen to be any voters who bullet
>>> voted for that candidate but didn't delegate to him, then you should
>>> definitely eliminate those first (even before the delegated ones, I think).
>>>  Once that candidate is elected, ballots which don't approve any other
>>> candidates are pretty useless, so you might as well get rid of them.
>>>
>>> But after that, I can see why you would be reluctant to incentivize
>>> approving more candidates.
>>>
>>>
>> Here's an idea. When you have elected a candidate, choose which of their
>> ballots survive, not which are eliminated; and do so in proportion to the
>> number of remaining hopeful candidates approved per ballot. This naturally
>> eliminates bullet votes.
>>
>
> You're still choosing randomly, right?  So the probability of surviving
> will be proportional to the number of remaining hopeful candidates left on
> that ballot.
>
>  I like it.  (I'm still kind of wary of non-deterministic methods, though.
>  Not for myself, actually, but for selling them to the public.)
>
> - Andy
>

Actually, you can do this either randomly, or deterministically, or indeed
randomly-until-you-get-the-same-result-twice, or any hybrid like that. It
should amount to the same thing; I'd be happy with whichever variant in this
regard was most popular. (ie, which turns people off less, "complex" math or
non-determinism or some compromise?)

JQ
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