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C/D:<br><br>It seems to me that the co-operation/defection (C/D) problem is more difficult to truly eliminate<br>than I'd believed. Hugely reducible, but maybe not eliminatable.<br><br>The methods that I've been suggesting, to get rid of the C/D problem--I'll refer to those as <br>"defection-resistant" methods. They include AOC, MTAOC, MCAOC, AOCBucklin, AC, MTAC,<br>MCAC, ACBudklin, MMT, GMAT, and ICT.<br><br>It seems to me that all of the defection-resistant methods that I know of which meet FBC <br>still allow another C/D problem, with burial. Of course the mechanism differs with different<br>methods, but they all seem to have that burial C/D problem.<br><br>For example, with the conditional methods, the burial takes the form that Jameson described.<br><br>But, for one thing, as I said, the burial can backfire, in the conditional methods, just as it<br>can in the pairwise-count methods. <br><br>Besides, unlike pairwise-count methods, the conditional methods have no such thing as <br>truncation offensive strategy.<br><br>I don't know, but it may well be that, in principle, strictly-speaking the new C/D problem,<br>with the defection, is the same as the old one. But there's a big and important difference:<br><br>It requires the drastic offensive strategy of burial. Burial is much less likely, more culpable, and<br>better-deterred than mere truncation or non-support.<br><br>So I still claim that the defection-resistant methods are a big improvement. I still claim that<br>they're the only significant improvement over Approval, and that there's no point proposing<br>or using something more complicated than ordinary Approval, unless it's defection-<br>resistant.<br><br>Maybe someone could show that the C/D problem can't be entirely eliminated with a<br>FBC-complying nonprobalistic ballots-only method. Defection-resistant, yes. Defection-proof,<br>no.<br><br>Another Approval C/D mitigation:<br><br>This isn't anything new, but I just haven't mentioned it before:<br><br>Actual elections are different from examples, such as the Approval bad-example (ABE). When there's going to be an actual<br>Approval election (ordinary non-conditional Approval), people will know what the supporters of other<br>candidates are saying about their candidate. You'll know if they're going to vote for hir. In fact that<br>matter could be made explicit during a campaign. There could be an agreement that the supporters<br>of 2 candidates, or members of 2 factions, will vote for eachothers' candidate. Or it could be declared<br>that they won't.<br><br>So Approval's C/D problem is exaggerated by the Approval bad-example.<br><br>But I still claim that AOC would be better, and that, in general, the defection-resistant methods would<br>be better.<br><br>Still, Approval looks quite adequate and merit-possessing, as a first proposal. I don't think that there's any<br>reason to propose anything other than Approval, as a first proposal. For me, there's no question about what<br>voting system should be proposed: Approval.<br><br>IRV with sincere voting:<br><br>Though I don't like FairVote's dishonesty, I must agree with something that they've claimed:<br><br>Sincere voting is an ok strategy in IRV. But that doesn't mean that people will vote sincerely.<br>I hasten to add that we know that voters are overly <br>compromise-prone, and that they _won't_ vote sincerely. We can't not take that into consideration when<br>proposing a voting system. At least if the method is Approval, no one will fail to fully support for their<br>favorite. I'm not saying that IRV would be as good a proposal as Approval.<br><br>But, for sincere voters, IRV wouldn't be so bad. As you know, it meets the Mutual Majority Criterion (MMC). <br>A mutual majority has nothing to fear when voting sincerely. One of their candidates will win.<br><br>Maybe you're not in a mutual majority, and the supporters of your needed compromise will bottom-rank your<br>favorite, and so, when Compromise gets eliminated, due to your not top-ranking hir, Worst will win.<br><br>That's why I earlier suggested, and still suggest for that situation, ranking the _acceptable_ candidates<br>in order of their winnability. The key word is _acceptable_. The problem is that voters who are resigned to<br>compromise tend to be willing to compromise their hopes away too readily.<br><br>So, in IRV, advise people to rank sincerely, because a mutual majority can't lose that way.<br><br>And advise them that if they're not in a mutual majority, even then, they should reserve their compromise-<br>high-ranking only for acceptable candidates. And they should be very particular what they deem acceptable.<br>They shouldn't give up their hopes. They should rank the genuinely acceptable candidates over all the others.<br>...no matter what they think the winnabilities are. Do that, and IRV would be ok.<br><br>Mike Ossipoff<br><br><br><br> </div></body>
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