[EM] Suppose, for a moment, there were never any cycles...

Kevin Venzke stepjak at yahoo.fr
Sat Jan 21 12:53:55 PST 2023


Hi Robert,

> I think it's the case that we know that the necessary ingredients for a cycle is a very
> close 3-way race *and* that there is at least a 2-dimensional political spectrum (Nolan
> chart) with candidates and voters spread out all over the map in 2 dimensions, *not* in
> mostly a linear spatial distribution.  There has to be a sorta political schizophrenia where
> a lotta voters are saying something like "If I can't have my favorite, Bernie, then I'm
> voting for T****."

Those might be the prerequisites for a cycle to exist in the *sincere* preferences.

> Here is my question: Suppose that cycles *never* happened.  Suppose we were somehow
> guaranteed that there is *always* a Condorcet winner.  And also suppose we're far enough
> from a cycle that no collective strategy would succeed at pushing the election into a cycle.

I'm not sure what that last sentence can really mean. We see even under IRV that not all
voters will give all their rankings, despite IRV offering no incentive to withhold them.
This is enough to create a voted cycle.

> Then, *if* there is always a CW, is there any strategy that will serve a voter's political
> interest  than better than ranking the candidates sincerely?
> 
> Like, if there is always a CW, how can IIA be violated?  It seems to me that, if you remove
> *any* loser from all ballots and the voters express their same preferences with the
> remaining candidates, that the same CW will be elected.  Without exception (other than a
> cycle).

Yes, if you don't allow the existence of any scenarios without a voted CW, then there should
be no strategies to use.

Kevin
votingmethods.net


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