[EM] Chicken Dilemma--To whom is it a problem? KV to DB

[Kevin Venzke]

Hi Dick,



----- Mail original -----
> De : Dick Burkhart <dickburkhart at comcast.net>
> À : 'Michael Ossipoff' <email9648742 at gmail.com>; 'Kevin Venzke' <stepjak at yahoo.fr>; election-methods at electorama.com
> Cc : 
> Envoyé le : Dimanche 20 octobre 2013 15h34
> Objet : RE: [EM] Chicken Dilemma--To whom is it a problem?
> 
>T he problem with Condorcet, SDSC, and the like is that they ignore crucial
> information - namely, the strengths of the voters preferences of one
> candidate over another. That is how mathematician Donald Saari can argue for
> the superiority of Borda, and why others argue for cardinal voting.
>

A problem there is that when you assume voters are strategic, and will try to manipulate the system to the extent that they need to, then the preference strength information is very hard to gather. I won't say it's impossible.

But, in my mind a major purpose of criteria like SDSC or Condorcet is to try to minimize the risk that there are not so many dissatisfied voters that they start to campaign for the use of a different election method. It's no good adopting the perfect method if it just gets repealed due to protest. For this purpose I think at minimum a method needs to elect a voted majority favorite.

Kevin Venzke