>Yves in reply to wds's criticism of Robla's "range killing" example: 1- Sincerity doesn't exist in politic. As the vote itself, everything is always strategic. The concept of democracy is to give the same chances to all individuals to influence a collective decision.
--wds response: first of all, if you think there is no sincerity and only strategy exists, then robla's example will never happen (since it involved non-strategic votes) and hence it is not a problem. second of all, you are simply wrong that sincerity does not exist, only strategic votes do. That is because we did a range voting poll in 2004 - discussed in http://math.temple.edu/~wds/crv/PsEl04.html and found that MOST votes were non-strategic. There are a considerable number of myths being bandied about as truths so obvious they need not even be discussed; but there is a major paucity of anybody actually consulting the actual evidence. SInce I did the world's only actual study of range voting in practice, my suggestion would be to take its findings into account. The full study is #82 at http://math.temple.edu/~wds/homepage/works.html I also point out that something like Robla's "range killing" example WOULD have happened (if there had been honest non-strategic voters, which I rather doubt, but let us postulate it) in the event there had been a vote in, say, ancient Rome or the early USA, on A=keep slavery and B=ban it (where slaves allowed to vote). Robla in that case would consider it a vast injustice and "glaring defect" that slaves should be freed according to range voting. I, however, would consider it a vast injustice that there were slaves, and it would not be a "glaring defect" but rather an "advantage" that range voting would choose to free the slaves. In fact, range voting, while perhaps not perfect in every way, *is* completely free of glaring defects, as far as I can tell. None have been brought to my attention, nor have any been found in a very large computer sim study by me embracing a very large range of scenarios and voter behaviors. In this study, range came out with better average utility than eveyr other voting system tried in every scenario (over 100 scenarios, over 25 voting systems compared). It is true this study did not include some strategies and some voting systems. But still it covered a lot of ground and if RV had any glaring defects, I would think they would have been visible somewhere in all that. I also point out that Robla on a previous occasion agreed that RV was a good system and, if I recall correctly said he would be "dancing in the streets" were it enacted. However, yesterday he said he could "never support it" in view of its "glaring defects." This behavior seems compatible with the theory that he is "on drugs"... but probably it is simply a mater of robla's priorities getting a little skewed by a little too much exposure to the EM nerdworld, and after some reconsideration perhaps he will regain his senses. cheerio. ---- Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
