[EM] SODA arguments

Kevin Venzke stepjak at yahoo.fr
Fri Feb 17 18:44:19 PST 2012


Hi Jameson,
 

>>
>>De : Jameson Quinn <jameson.quinn at gmail.com>
>>À : Kevin Venzke <stepjak at yahoo.fr> 
>>Cc : election-methods <election-methods at electorama.com> 
>>Envoyé le : Vendredi 17 février 2012 19h53
>>Objet : Re: [EM] SODA arguments
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>> 
>>>For those who feel that Bayesian Regret is the be-all-and-end-all measure of voting system quality, that SODA's BR for 100% strategic voters will beat all other systems, including Range/Approval. 
>>>
>>>I guess you will have a hard time arguing this, especially if you have multiple audiences. For instance, whether Range/Approval
>>>are even all that great is controversial. But if you're an anti-majoritarian type or think it's unfair/unrealistic to propose that voters
>>>are strategic, I guess that SODA looks like a step down.
>>
>>
>>I'm not sure that's true. Clay and Warren are the most hard-core BR advocates, and probably I should let them speak for themselves, but... I think their attitude is not that "strategy is evil" or "Range voters will be 100% honest", but rather, "Some fraction of voters will be honest under range, and that's good, so why not use range and let them?" In that case, the fact that range voting is strictly better (by BR, and for a pre-chosen arbitrary strategic percentage) than [IRV, Condorcet, MJ, etc], is an important foundation of their argument. Finding a system which, while it is worse than range for 100% honest, is actually better than it in some cases (100% strategy, and presumably 99%, who knows where it stops), is an important qualitative difference in the situation.
>
Alright. I guess I'll let them make their own arguments if they are so inclined.

>>
>>Didn't you post an example where SODA declined to elect a "weak CW" that you said was actually a good thing? If that's
>>>true, I guess some people won't agree with that.
>>
>>
>>Yes. The basic setup is two major candidates and a weak centrist. The weaker of the two majors gets to decide which of the other two wins. So if the "weak CW" is truly a CW, they will be preferred by the weaker major, and thus win; but if they are more weak than CW, then the weaker major would rather allow the stronger major to win than stake their reputation on electing the weak CW.
>>
>>
>>So in the end, it's more a question of giving a last chance to realize that someone isn't really the CW, rather than not electing someone who is the CW.
>>
>
Concerns me a little. I'm not sure candidates would do the thing their supporters would want (or even that they themselves feel is 
best) due to pressures like "staking their reputation." For instance, I can see a moderate liberal giving his votes to a more extreme
liberal even when he himself prefers a moderate conservative. A voter whose personal ranking crosses the line like that might
want to avoid delegating.

>>
>>
>>>
>>>It seems to me that there would be a lot more candidates under SODA. It's pretty hard to spoil the race and there is benefit to
>>>be had in receiving some votes. It seems parliamentary that way. How many supporters is too few to consider running?
>>
>>
>>Well, there is the 5% cutoff, below which your votes are automatically assigned for you.
>>
>
That's not really a punishment though. The candidate will probably get what they would've done anyway.

I really think this is an issue that might need a rule of some kind. Why nominate one when you can nominate five? Anybody
who appeals to some segment of the electorate could help bring in votes. Can you imagine if, for example, the Republicans
were able to nominate every single one of their hopefuls for the presidency, with the knowledge that in the end all their votes
would probably pool together? You don't have to like Gingrich, you can vote for Cain. And maybe your vote will end up
with Gingrich, but without Cain you might not have cast it at all.
 
>>
>>
>>>
>>>(I have a simple rule for cutting down the number of candidates. I don't think I've ever mentioned it because I know how 
>>>idealistic you all are. Just say that the first-preference winner auto-wins if he has more first preferences than second and third
>>>place combined. This can make it risky even to compete for third place. The idea is that voters should definitely then realize
>>>which candidates are the top three in their race, which could amount to a viability/visibility boost for #3. My rule assumes 
>>>there's no equal-ranking, but I bet something could be devised for other ballots.)
>>
>>
>>That rule doesn't sound too bad to me. Most of the time, there'd be no risk of it applying; but I think it would still be a gentle pressure in the intended direction. Still, I think it should be considered separately from SODA per se.
Maybe it would be gentle if you expect a lot of candidates but in general I don't think it is very gentle. For example, 
this election:

49 A
44 B
4 C>B
3 D>B

Would qualify, and auto-elect A.

Kevin
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/attachments/20120218/22e55790/attachment-0004.htm>


More information about the Election-Methods mailing list