[EM] IRV, JITW, Asset, optional delegation.

[Michael Ossipoff]

Raph:

> Suppose the method is IRV, with JITW. Say the candidates are a Green,
> a Democrat, and a Republican.
>
> Most or all Dem preferrers would rank Repub 2nd, because Dem & Repub
> are incomparably closer to eachother than either is to Green.

You replied:

If you assume that a majority prefer both major parties to the 3rd
 party, then obviously one should win.

> There's no chicken dilemma there either.

You are assuming centre squeeze.  That pretty much only happens to a
minor party.

[endquote]

Sure, a relatively unfavorite CW gets eliminated. IRV isn't good at
electing CWs or good compromises. For that reason, and because of its
FBC-failure, you don't want iRV unless you're sure that you're in a
mutual majority (or are risk-tolerant, and want an adventurous,
ambitious gamble).

But if you're definitely in a mutual majority (especially if you're in
the larger faction of that mutual majority), then IRV would work fine
for you.

Though I'm certain that this country has a progressive majority (if
people would read the platforms and vote for what they like best), I'm
not certain that it's a _mutual_ majority. There's some dissention and
division among the progressive parties. There might be a progressive
party that would have strategic motivation to tell its voters to rank
a Democrat over the other progressives. If so, then IRV would be bad
news for all progressives, including that hypothetically
mutualilty-defecting party.

I've mentioned that, if we elected a Green government, IRV would be
the initial default voting system, because it's what their platform
offers. But there'd surely be initiatives and/or referenda, maybe a
national one, about a choice of voting system. Whether progressives
should support IRV, or Approval/Score, would depend on what is known
at that time about whether the progressives' majority is _mutual_. I'd
hope that there could public choice of a voting system, before the
first next Congressional and presidential elections, in the new Green
government, so that people could support the voting system that is in
their best interest.

You wrote:

Anyway, you make a good point, the chicken dilemma doesn't seem to
apply to IRV.  Maybe it might still happen in more complex situations,
but not with 3 candidates.

[endquote]

IRV can't have a chicken dilemma, under any circumstances, because IRV
meets Later-No-Harm (LNHa). Very few methods meet that critrerion.
It's mostly the combination of IRV's compliance with Mutual Majority
(MMC) and LNHa, that makes it so interesting. But Later-No-Help is
nice too, and Clone-Independence. Whether supporting IRV in a Green
govt. referendum would be a good idea for progressives, given the
election of a Green government, remains to be seen, because it isn't
known if the progressive majority is cohesive (mutual).

And, of course IRV is completely inadequate for the currently existing
electorate, with its current beliefs about winnability and
acceptability. No FBC-failing method could be any good for us now.

>> However, I am not entirely convinced that candidates would put their
>> voters first in such a situation.
>
> If not, then they could kiss their political career goodbye.

I was thinking of the chicken situation, so if that doesn't apply,
withdrawal would have no disadvantages to candidate.

[endquote]

Not with IRV.

You wrote:

The only reason would be that they want an easier shot at the seat
next time.  They don't want an incumbent with similar views, but that
would be harder to explain to the voters.

[endquote]

Most definitely. If they refused to withdraw for that reason, they
could forget all about getting any voter support next time.


>> This is also a problem with Asset voting.
>
> Well, with Asset, or (better) with Approval or Score with optional
> delegation, there could, and often would, be negotiation among the
> candidates, to decide the placement of delegated votes. It might work
> well.

Chicken can definitely happen with Asset, especially if the voters
vote directly for candidates (or more accurately, if proxies can vote
for themselves).

For the candidates' decisions, negotiation would tremendously ease the
problem. I'm talking about binding, publicly-observed, written-down
negotiated agreements.

For a voter, if s/he perceives a chicken dilemma, then s/he could let
hir delegated favorite candidate deal with it by negotiation.

Asset would be ok. I'd prefer that voters have a choice about whether
or not to delegate, or to just instead cast an ordinary Approval or
Score ballot.

But, in any case, Asset, or optional-delegation with Approval or
Score, would be a drastic big change in voting. Asking for bigger
changes is harder. In the household voting-systems poll that i
recently did, everyone but me rejected the delegation option. That's
why I don't talk much about Asset or optional delegation. Better to
discuss the more winnable proposals.

Mike Ossipoff