[EM] Jameson reply

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

Jameson: > Therefore, s/he can't lose
 if s/he is one of the two biggest votegetters in the primary. IRV doesn't
 have a guarantee like that.
The conditional methods that I've been proposing won't elect "weak CWs",
 unfavorite CWs.
 You replied:
Do you mean strategic CWs?  [endquote] As people here use the term, a "weak CW" is a CW who is the favorite of few voters. That's why I also called it an unfavorite CW. Whether voters have sufficiently examined the  candidates is their businbess only.  A recommendation: If you haven't examined xenough to know that you'd rather elect x than y, then maybe you shouldn't rank x over y. It isn't our place to 2nd guess the voters, and question whethr they've informed themselves sufficiently. Often people who haven't examined candidates' and parties' platforms don't vote--as witness the turnout of the current poll at EM. I don't know how insincere voting could cause a candidate to pairwise-beat all the others, but I don't consider it a problem to worry about.  
You continued: Anyway, that whole argument just leaves IRV, MJ, and SODA as viable.
>
> What?? :-)
>

I don't mean that these are the most viable methods. I mean that they're
the most viable according to the weak-centrists-shouldn't-win argument. I
don't think that WCSW is the most important criterion, by any means, but it
is one aspect of viability worth discussing. [endquote] No one other than the voters themselves has a right to say who should win. By the way, the conditional methods don't elect weak centrists or favorite-of-few CWs. I don't claim that weak centrists shouldn't be elected. Most pairwise count methods elect them....as they should if that's what voted preferences indicate. It just happens that the conditional methodsdon't do so. It is not because of that property that I advocate them. But it's true that some or most peoplewould consider the election of a favorite-of-few CW to be a bad-example. By the way, let's avoid "centrist". It has more than one meaning. The usual meaning is: "Someonewho is between the average positions of the Republican candidates and the Democrat candidates. But there's no reason to believe that that "center" or "middle" is anywhere  near the actual population median  There are reasons tobelieve that it is not. I believe that you yourself said that too. We often hear of how Republocrat "middle" positions differ drastically from public wishes. Nader won all of the presidential mock elections here, and most others that I've heard of elsewhere too. 

I'd said;

> You're all worried about what the incumbants will like or accept. They'll
> only accept what will keep electing them. They were elected by a method
> with a serious spoiler problem. Without that problem, and voters'
> consequent favorite-burial, those people wouldn't be in office.
>

You replied: I expect that around half of incumbents would be out, not all of them. The
ones with real, non-spoiler-based popularity do exist, and I have no beef
with them (per se). [endquote] ...and which  current incumbants do you think would get elected when voters could vote for genuine favorites, and thereby have found out where the population median really is, and who is winnable? I'd said: It was shown by Myerson & Weber that Plurality and IRV will keep on
> electing even the two most despised parties, if media have led Ipeople to
> believe that those are "the 2 choices".
> That's because, after everyone has voted for those parties, (surprise) one
> of them will win, seeming to confirm the belief that they're "the 2
> choices".
>
> Of course we're familiar with this in Plurality. But Myerson & Weber
> demonstrated that it's
> true of IRV too.
>
  Is this Myerson, R. and Weber, R.J.(1993) A theory of Voting Equilibria
American Political Science Review Vol 87, No. 1, 102-114? [endquote] That sounds like the article. I don't have the date & volume particulars right now, thoughI posted them about a month ago. Maybe, as you say, current officeholders have the power to prevent voting reform. If so, thenit won't happen, because I guarantee that incumbants will never accept a voting system thatlets voters express their wishes. That's because they don't want their careers to be over. Mike Ossipoff    		 	   		  
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