From: Russ Paielli <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
So what is the optimal strategy in responding to an Approval poll? Do any or all voters have an incentive to lie about their cutoff point -- or perhaps to even rearrange their preference order before drawing the line? And how would such strategy affect convergence if everyone adopted it? Will honest respondents be at a disadvantage?
Obviously that question is a lot easier to ask than it is to answer, but I think some sort of answer in necessary before Approval can be fully evaluated.
I think that the average person would be apt to play up support for his favorite and down play support for compromise, and that most folks would take this into account when interpreting the polls.
I'd really like to know what the optimal strategy is for replying to a pre-election Approval poll. If anyone is capable of determining that, you are probably the one, Mr. Simmons. I suggest you put your capable mind to it.
Maybe that strategy is just too darn complicated to formulate. Then again, maybe the optimal strategy in replying to a poll is not much different from the optimal strategy in the actual election. If that is the case, then the "disinformation" problem may not be too bad.
I don't think the problem is with respondents lying so much as with private corporate pollsters having conflicts of interest (to some degree) and (to a much greater degree) corporate news media selectively spinning the results while reporting to the voting public.
That depends on what kind of advantage can be gained by lying to pollsters. If a significant advantage can be gained, it will be done. If not, it probably won't. But I sympathize with your concern about corporate news spin. I can just imagine how fair CBS will be to Republicans! "Spin" isn't the word for it.
Better to start with zero info strategy, and build up data, election by election.
That's where Condorcet has an advantage over Approval: no lag time.
True, but Condorcet is not on the horizon.
--Russ
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