[EM] Juho , 5/21/12, roughly 0800 UT

Tue May 22 14:18:18 PDT 2012

Juho says:

[Note: Michael Ossipof's message was not a reply to a mail on this list but
to an offline discussion.]

On 21.5.2012, at 23.13, Michael Ossipoff wrote:

I don't know what you mean by "all regular voters".

I requested strategy descriptions that would be intended for real life
elections and normal voters (not EM experts) in such elections. That means
that the strategy shall be clear enough so that normal voters can implement
it.

[endquote]

This is just more of the same repetition, and answering it would require me
to repeat answers that I've already given, yet again. I'm not going to. But
there are just a few things that are so outrageously silly that I will
comment.

First, in my Approval voting recommendations and descriptions of Approval
strategy, I meant what I said. I don't accept or endorse Juho's strange
interpretations. Those are not what I meant.

You identified two of your examples by giving their "characteristic
numbers", 27,24,49 and 33,32,34. I found and commented the latter one in a
mail
(http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2012-
May/030400.html).

If you want to say that one of them isn't good enough, then you need to
clearly specify it, and then tell what's wrong with it, and why you think
so.

I hope the mail was clear enough. 

[endquote]

Are you joking? It wasn't clear enough, bedause it said that the example
didn't work, but said nothing about why you think so.

Juho says:

Maybe you did not notice that mail since you did not comment it yet.

[endquote]

I've replied to everything, unless it's one of the two new ones today.

I'd said:

Do you mean that you only want your favorite to win? Then, in Approval,
approve hir only. 

Juho says:

This doesn't sound like a good strategy. You know well that there are better
Approval strategies.

[endquote]

On the contrary, it's the very best strategy if all you want is for your
favorite to win. You'd spoken of wanting to win. I took a guess that you
were referring to wanting your favorite to win.

Juho:

Only Condorcet strategy still missing.)

[endquote]

General strategy for Condorcet is not known. I've described optimal
Condorcet strategy for when it's a u/a election and Compromise is the only
acceptable who can beat the unacceptables: Vote Compromise alone in 1st
place. I've repeated that very many times for you. That's the last time.

But if you're questioning the assumption that people wouldn't strategize in
Approval, I merely suggest voting for all whom you like. If you want to, you
can strategize. Suit yourself.

Yes, that is what I meant. And I'm still confused with your idea that people
would choose between those two options in a competitive election.

[endquote]

Many will just vote for those whom they like. Many, including me, would vote
only for the acceptables. Many won't give any consideration to strategy
other than that. Maybe some will, and that's fine too.

Juho says:

On the Approval side you say that Approval works fine. I say that there are
situations where Approval fails in the sense that the voters don't have any
reasonable strategies.

[endquote]

With his usual vagueness, Juho neglected to share with us what situations he
is referring to.

If he's referring to his examples, they aren't relevant to the strategies
that I've described. Juho doesn't supply the relevant information.

Juho says:

You should pick the strategy that works in all situations. 

[endquote]

Since no general strategy for Condorcet is known, I assume that Juho is
referring to Approval strategy.

Ok, Juho, get ready. Get your pencil and paper:

Vote for the candidates who are better than what you expect from the
election result.

All of the other Approval strategy suggestions are special case
implementations of that strategy, which of course can also be implemented
directly.

Juho says:

I'm to point out the vulnerabilities based on that given strategy, e.g. by
providing examples of situations where that strategy does not work well
enough.

[endquote]

Fine. Do so.

Juho says:

I provided at least one problematic Approval example to you although I did
not yet get yet any exact definition of a recommended Approval strategy that
voters could use when planning how to vote.

[endquote]

Your examples were problematic because they gave no information about
voters' expectation in the election, nor the information needed for the
special case implementations of Approval's general strategy.

Juho says:

Does "result-merit that you expect" mean the value of the (single) guessed
winner or maybe the weighted average of potential winners?

[endquote]

Answer to both questions: Yes, if that's what you feel that you know, or
have a perception or feel about.

People are not going to determine their expectation in the election by
multiplying the win probability of each candidate by hir utility, and
summing the products. But you can do that if you want to.

But you know how good a result you expect from the election.

I take that to mean that voters are expected to estimate (at some level) the
value of each candidate and the probability of each candidate to win, and
then estimate what the value of the outcome is likely to be. 

[endquote]

That's hilarious. But you're serious. I'd just finished saying that that is
_not_ how people are going to determine their expectation. 

It will be a guess, an impression, not a calculation.

Juho says:

Does the expectation refer to the sincere opinions or does it include the
expected strategic voting too (much more complicated and cyclic)?

[endquote]

...if you want it to.

Ok. I take that to mean, if the voters take that into account in their
considerations.

[endquote]

They won't. But you're free to calculate, judge or estimate expectation in
as elaborate manner as you prefer.

It seems that this is finally an exact definition of an Approval strategy.
It is not quite user friendly since I don't expect normal voters to
understand much about expectation values. 

[endquote]

What is Juho talking about? As I said, anyone knows who good a result they
expect from the election. Even a 0-info election.

Juho says:

Actually the article (see above) contained one classical definition of
Approval strategy that says pretty much the same thing and that voters might
understand better (although you had your doubts about it too). It was "Would
I rather appoint him/her to office than hold the election?".

[endquote]

I made it clear that that probably isn't something that people would have a
feel for, since we don't have the task or ability to actually appoint people
to office. That's why I said that the best direct implementation of
better-than-expectation is just to vote for the candidates who are better
than what you expect from the election. We _do_ have a feel for how good a
result we expect from the election.

Also this may be too difficult for many voters, which is not good for
Approval (many voters will not follow the strategy). But I'll take this
strategy (with either definition) as your recommended strategy for voters in
competitive elections.

[endquote]

Suit yourself :-)   But I said recommended otherwise.

If you have a similar exact strategy description available for taking
benefit of the claimed Condorcet vulnerabilities, that would be welcome, and
actually needed to make the strategy credible.

[endquote]

I didn't say that it was for taking advantage of Condorcet vulnerabilities.
I said that I was telling you Condorcet's optimal strategy for certain
conditions.

Ok, are you ready?  Here it is:

If it's a u/a election, and if Compromise is the only acceptable who can
beat the unacceptables, then rank Compromise alone in 1st place.

What's that? You say that sounds familiar? You catch on fast.

Mike Ossipoff

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