[EM] Approval Voting and Long-term effects of voting systems

[Daniel LaLiberte]

On Tue, Nov 22, 2016 at 8:25 PM, Michael Ossipoff <email9648742 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Robert--
>
>  You wrote:
>
>> voters shouldn't have to worry about "predictive information" in casting
>> their vote. they should not have to face tactical voting in the polls in
>> any common case.
>>
> Exactly. That's one reason why like Approval, and why I agree with David
> that it's the best method (except that chicken-dilemma protected methods do
> bring some improvement).
>
>
Assuming you meant me, I would like to agree with your "Exactly" but I
think we need to clarify a couple things to avoid a misunderstandings we
seem to be having with Robert.

I agree that we should probably prefer to use a voting system in which it
is safest to avoid using predictive information about likely winners.    I
say
"probably" because I don't think that should be the highest criteria,
depending on how unreliable the predictive information is, and moreover,
because of what should be the highest weighed criteria.

But another important point is that, just as there is no perfect voting
system, I suspect there is NO voting system for which it can be considered
completely safe to ignore all predictive information all the time.   That
is, we ALWAYS need to consider predictive information to some degree at
least some of the time no matter which voting system we use.  Is this claim
correct?  Does "tactical" or "strategic" voting always involve this
predictive information?

If it is true that there is always going to be some tactical aspect to
voting for any voting system, then we should try to minimize the negative
aspects of when it needs to be applied.

In the case of all ranking systems, I claimed that it is necessary to rank
one of the frontrunners highest, or you risk a win by one of your less
favored frontrunners. I'm not sure I got an affirmative answer to this
broad claim.  In which ranking systems would it be completely safe for
voters to ignore who the frontrunners are?

In the case of Approval Voting, I admit is necessary to decide where you
cut off approvals, and if it is in the neighborhood of one of the likely
frontrunners, then you have to balance your degree of approval of those
frontrunner candidates with their likelihood of winning.  On the other
hand, it is NOT necessary to be tactical in ordering the candidates that
you approve or disapprove, other than finding that cut-off point because
Approval Voting doesn't give you a choice in that.

But as Michael says, and I agree, this one tactical decision is not as much
of an issue once elections have evolved to the point where the most likely
winning candidates are also the most approved by voters.  And that is an
overriding factor in my mind.

In contrast to the criterion of having to be strategic (in any way that
might be required), I believe that the most important criteria should be
the "fairness" of the outcome.  And by "fairness" I mean in the sense of
how well the election represents the will of the people, at least in the
short-term.  But since that word is probably fairly (heh) subjective and
overloaded because different people will have different conflicting views
of what is "fair", I am fine with replacing it with something more
specific.

Stability in the long-term is another criterion that, when combined with
"my fairness", I would tend to prefer.  However, the chicken dilemma adds a
bit of instability, which, if it is not to shocking and destabilizing,
might actually be a benefit to a system that could otherwise become too
entrenched.

-- 
Daniel LaLiberte
daniel.laliberte at gmail.com
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