[EM] Median systems, branding, and activism strategy

[Jameson Quinn]

I just had a minor realization. As I said to Abd, his Bucklin-ER (as I
understand it) has slightly less resistance to the chicken dilemma than
GMJ, because the Bucklin-ER tiebreaker effectively ends up focusing
slightly below the median in the grade distribution, while GMJ focuses on a
region balanced around the median. Well, why not take that in the other
direction? Consider the following Bucklin system, tentativlely named:
uı|ʞɔnq-ᴚƎ:

Count the votes at the highest grade for each candidate. If any one
candidate has a majority, they win. If not, add in lower grades, one at a
time, until some candidate or candidates get a majority. If two candidates
would reach a majority at the same grade level, then whichever has the most
votes above that level wins. If there are no votes above that level, the
highest votes at or above that level wins.

Now consider a chicken dilemma where Y and Z must cooperate to defeat X. If
a Y voter rates Z at the second-to-bottom grade, then further strategy
simply will not help unless Z's median falls to 0 — which would mean
risking an X win if Z's voters are similarly strategic. This is a stronger,
and more-simply-argued, bulwark against the chicken dilemma's slippery
slope than GMJ's.

GMJ still has certain advantages. Because it's cleaner and more symmetrical
in an abstract sense, its criterion compliances are slightly better; and
uı|ʞɔnq-ᴚƎ does not allow reporting via 1 number per candidate. But these
are minor, technical points. While I still have a father's affection for
GMJ, I think that uı|ʞɔnq-ᴚƎ is now my favorite system.

Obviously the name needs fixing; I've left it with a deliberately unusable
one for now. I'd be happy to call it IRAV, or APV, or whatever other people
support in this thread.
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