[EM] Strategic Clone Nomination in the 2012 Presidential Election

[Michael Ossipoff]

The Justice Party, and Rocky Anderson demonstrate that the strategic
clone-nomination problem is a very real one, with Plurality.

Plurality and Copeland both genuinely have a clone problem (though not
the same one).

When you listen to the debates among the media-banned candidates, you
notice that one of them sounds like a clone of the Greens. You might
wonder "Where did he come from?".

According to wikipedia, the Justice Party formed about a year ago,
centered on a presidential candidacy for Rocky Anderson. Wikipedia
lists the Justice Party among the smaller ones,and the GPUS among the
larger ones. It says that the Justice Party is 5th, among the
media-banned parties (which includes all parties other than the
Democrat, Republican, and sometimes Reform, parties), as measured by
ballot-status.

Listening to the debates, I didn't notice anything said by Anderson
that wasn't also being said by Stein (and said by the GPUS before the
formation of the Justice Party). So then, if the Justice Party wants
exactly the same things as GPUS, why was it necessary to start a new
party? And why do the Justice Party and Rocky Anderson want to ask
people to give their vote to a much smaller party, with vastly less
ballot-status, when the much larger GPUS is offering exactly the same
proposals?

Only one reason suggests itself: Strategic clone nomination.   ...for
the purpose of splitting the Stein vote.

Approval, Score, ICT, and Symmetrical ICT don't have a clone problem.

There must be several definitions of the Clone-Independence Criterion,
because some say that Approval passes, and some say it fails.

I won't use the Clone-Independence Criterion, because it doesn't have
a single definition. But we can speak of the matter of whether a
method has a clone problem.

Here's why I say that Approval doesn't have a clone problem:

For one thing, if you've approved A1, and a clone, A2 is added,
there's nothing stopping you from approving both. Kristofer said that
he doesn't like that typical Approval strategy need. But let's take a
closer look at it: Here's what it would take for there to, at first,
seem to be a problem:

You like A1 best. Though A2 is a clone of A1 (by the usual clone
definition), you like A2 a lot less than A1. That's possible even if
A2 is a clone of A1. You don't want to approve A2. Half of the
original A1-preferrers agree with you on that. The other half like A2
much better than A1. In fact, they like A2 so much better than A1
that, when A2 is introduced, they're tempted to approve only A2, in
hopes of the big improvement that they perceive to thereby be
possible.

For one thing, though that's possible if A1 and A2 are clones, how
likely is it really? Those 2 A-factions, with opposite _strong_
preferences between A1 and A2, when A1 and A2 are clones?

Additionally, it's only a problem when you look at it from the point
of view of the A1-preferrers. But their problem depends on the
A2-preferrers' problem, and on what the A2-preferrers do, so let's
look at the A2-preferrers' problem instead:

For them, the addition of A2 is purely a positive change. It offers
them a chance to try for something much better. They can do that if
they want to, though it's a gamble, because they could split the
A-faction vote in half, and cause the winner to be neither A1 nor A2.
But they don't have to take that gamble. They don't have to accept
that "problem". If they don't accept the problem, by taking the
gamble, then there isn't a problem. If they can choose to not have
that problem, then how can it be called a "problem"?

The above applies just as well to the clone "problem" in ICT and
Symmetrical ICT.

Another thing--some things that I've mentioned previously:

`1. Even if the clone "problem" described above were a strategy-need
worth mentioning, it's still only the ordinary, typical Approval
strategy (That's likewise true in ICT and Symmetrical ICT). And
wouldn't it be nice if other methods didn't have strategy needs or
problems worse than those of Approval.

The chicken dilemma is a worse strategy situation than the ordinary
Approval strategy situation. The possibility of a chicken dilemma is
measured by the CD criterion, failed by Condorcet methods other than
ICT and Symmetrical ICT.

So, trading CD for Clone-Independence would be a poor trade.

Additionally, unimproved Condorcet fails FBC too, and so that must be
counted among what would be lost in that trade.

2.  As i've said, all of our elections are u/a elections. The strategy
of Approval, Score, ICT and Symmetrical ICT are very simple in u/a
elections.

Even the most pessimistic interpretation of the "problem" described
above, with the addition of A2, is irrelevant and non-problematic in a
u/a election, where the strategy remains the same, and no
strategy-dilemma could conceivably result from the addition of A2.

Michael Ossipoff