I do believe that Condorcet wv had a serious strategy problem.
While it is unknown how likely a successful execution of the burial
strategy would be in a public election, I believe that if it did occur, it
would produce an *extremely* negative reaction towards both the result and
the election method itself.
Imagine if Kerry beat Bush by a few hundred thousand votes, and yet Bush
actually won the election because most of the Bush voters strategically
ranked Nader second, creating a fake Nader > Kerry victory to knock Kerry
out of the running.
Something like this, for example. 44%: Bush > Nader > Kerry 5%: Bush > Kerry > Nader 38%: Kerry > Nader > Bush 5%: Kerry > Bush > Nader 8%: Nader > Kerry > Bush Bush : Kerry = 49 : 51 Bush : Nader = 54 : 46 Kerry : Nader = 48 : 52
At least one reason why this is not a serious strategy problem is the near perfect information that the Bush voters must have for the strategy to make any sense.
If the Bush voters were off by just the right amount, Nader could win the election instead of their sincere second choice, Kerry.
I am not aware of any polling method which is capable of being this accurate, so unless the Bush voters like playing chicken, their only rational choice is to vote sincerely. And, among the first things people would learn is to lie to those taking the polls since providing an honest answer has a greater chance to do nothing for them or to hurt them then it does to actually help them.
The only potential place for this strategy to work would be in relatively small groups where everyone knows everyone else and how they are going to vote, but then one cannot discount the potential for counter-strategies to be employed in which case nearly anything could happen and again the only rational choice for the voters would be to vote sincerely.
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