[EM] Cloneproofing Random Pair and Random Candidate?

Kristofer Munsterhjelm km_elmet at lavabit.com
Wed Apr 3 00:24:37 PDT 2013


Unless I'm mistaken, the method called "Random Favorite" is cloneproof, 
for an extended variant of independence from clones that says that the 
probability of a clone set member being chosen can not depend on the 
size of the clone set.

Say the first ballot is chosen. Then before cloning, the first choice is 
obviously picked. If the first choice was part of a clone set and the 
clone set is either made larger or smaller, a member of that clone set 
is still picked. So Random Favorite appears cloneproof.

The other two random strategy-proof ranked methods we know of - Random 
Pair and Random Candidate - are not. Random Candidate is obviously 
vulnerable to teaming. So is Random Pair, because adding clones means 
there's a greater probability one or both of the pair come from the 
clone set.

However, there is a rated method that is also strategy-proof. It is 
called Hay voting. Some time ago, I stumbled across 
http://www.panix.com/~tehom/essays/hay-extended.html , which seems to be 
a proposal to make Hay voting cloneproof. I haven't really understood 
the details yet, but I'm wondering if this could be used to also make 
the two Random methods cloneproof.




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