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Jameson:<br><br>That DH3 sounds like another way of saying "turkey-raising", which itself is just an instance of burial strategy, a word that you yourself used in<br>your description of DH3.<br><br>Good point. Thanks for pointing out that the conditional methods aren't entirely free of burial or turkey-raising. Like Beatpath, they have burial<br>strategy, and, like Beatpath, there is a risk that deters that strategy. In Beatpath, the Democrats might strategically vote Hitler or Gingrich over Romney, <br>possibly resulting in the election of someone worse than Romney, even from the Democrat standpoint.<br><br>One difference is that, in the conditional methods, it takes several factions (sets of 1st-choice voters for different candidates) to elect the turkey, whereas,<br>with Beatpath, one faction of turkey-raisers is enough to bring turkey-victory.<br><br>I'd previously said that the conditional methods seem almost too good to be true. Well, _complete_ freedom from other methods' strategy problems<br>was too good to be true. <br><br>But note a few other differences between the conditional methods and Beatpath: The conditional methods meet FBC and don't have the<br>co-operation/defection problem.<br><br>And "turkey-raising" and "burial" don't mean quite the same thing in the conditional methods. Nothing is the same in the conditional methods.<br><br>In the conditional methods, the turkey-raisers only benefit if the turkey's supporters want to conditionally give a vote to the turkey-raisers' candidate. They<br>probably just want to help a compromise (and maybe get coalition votes in return). And, if small candidate supporters know that the big-candidates' voters are unlikely to<br>risk helping a small candidate, because of the risk you describe, then the small candidates' supporters can make their support for a bigger compromise<br>candidate unconditional. That will probably be the usual practice. Conditional votes are specifically for situations like the ABE.<br><br>The conditional methods' strategy "problem" amounts to fishing for coalition vote-sharing--a rather innocent thing.<br><br>No method is entirely free of strategy. With the conditional methods, be careful how you fish, if you must use that strategy.<br><br>Say the method is AOC (that's optionally conditional Approval), and that there are several progressive factions, variously<br>favoring candidates P1, P2, P3...etc. The P1 voters (and the other progressives too) consider anything worse than a progressive to be unaccepable, and they<br>consider P2 to be an acceptable compromise, to avoid a non-progressive win. But they don't like P2 or hir supporters as much as the other progressives. <br>For that reason, and because all of the progressives, when voting sincerely, would vote eachother's candidates over the nonprogressives,<br>the P1 voters give to P2 a conditional approval. Also, in that way, they aren't giving to P2 something that hir voters can use<br>against P1 (as they would be doing if they gave P2 an unconditional approval).<br><br>That's an example of what the conditional votes are for, to avoid co-operation/defection.<br><br>Now, the P1 voters could gain votes, via coalition, by their conditional P2 approval. This could advance them with respect to the other<br>progressive factions. The other factions could respond by, themselves, giving conditional votes to P2. If they do, it's with the knowledge that<br>lots of factions making coalition with P2 could elect p2. But maybe they, too, consider P2 to be an acceptable compromise, against the<br>nonprogressives.<br><br>On the other hand, maybe they aren't as close to P2 as the P1 voters are. Maybe they'd prefer to just let the P1 faction help P2, to avoid<br>multiplying P2's coalition-support. It's their choice.<br><br>So, the coalition-benefit strategy, though there, is mild.<br><br>And the progressives should all be supporting eachother's candidates, and that would greatly reduce or eliminate the danger of P2 getting<br>an undue share of the coalition support. In fact, if, compared to P1, P2 is less liked by P3, P4... progressives, then s/he'll get fewer approvals from them.<br><br>In other words, of course, as you said, you were only talking about competitive burial strategy. Without that burial use of conditional voting,<br>the problem you describe doesn't happen.<br><br>Of course if the nonprogressives (maybe correctly) perceive themselves having less votes than the progressives, then they, too, might<br>help P2, who is closer to them than are the other progressive candidates. Those approvals are likely to be unconditional, since, if there's a<br>perception of a progressive majority, then nonprogressive candidates can't expect votes from progressives.<br><br>By the way, one thing that I like about Approval is that, if it incorrectly appears that the progressives have a majority, then the nonprogressives<br>should, strategically, give a vote to a progressive. So that progressive-majority misconception, held by all, because everyone has the same polling data, won't hurt<br>the progressives.<br><br>Of course it works the other way too: If it looks as if nonprogressives have a majority, that could make them win. <br><br>...except that, in both cases, principled, noncompromising voters, people who are basing their vote on acceptability vs unacceptability, aren't going to<br>cross the progressive/nonprogressive line with their approvals. In other words, Approval favors candidates preferred by principled uncompromising voters,<br>people who are sure about what is acceptable or unacceptable.<br><br>How many Democrat voters do you think vote for the Democrat because of uncompromising principle, rather than lesser-of-2-evils, hold-your-nose, voting?<br>From what they themselves say, not too many.<br><br>Anyway, the problem you speak of only occurs when voters are burying. When they're using conditional votes as intended, the problem doesn't happen.<br><br>Mike Ossipoff<br><br><br><br><br><br> </div></body>
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