James--
I can't prove that offensive order reversal won't happen on a scale sufficient to change the outcome, and you can't prove that it will. The evidence that we have, the experience with rank-balloting polls, says that it won't happen. In these polls, with no material result, there's no risk for offensive order-reversal. Most who votred would probably prefer that their favorite win. But we didn't get offensive order-reversal. In a public election would anyone offensively order-reverse? Maybe a few. But evidence suggests that it won't happen on a scale sufficient to change the outcome.
You could argue that in the polls people didn't care enough to order-reverse, and hesitated to do so because voting wasn't anonymous. Anyway, in public elections, where the outcome matters, offensive order-reversal is well-deterred. Offensivse order-reversers? Bring 'em on!
You continue:
For example, wouldn't we expect a Bush backer to rank Kerry in last place even if there were other candidates on the ballot whom that voter would like even less than Kerry if that was the only choice?
I reply:
That will backfire badly unless the Kerry voters have ranked Bush. Your offensive order-reversal can only steal the election from people who are trying to help you.
You continue:
I suppose that this kind of non-strategic order-reversal will probably tend to exist on a smaller scale than non-strategic truncation, but it should still be taken into account somewhat.
I reply:
Take it into account by not ranking a candidate if whose voters you believe to be dishonest or unethical enough to order-reverse against your favorite. Or by ranking only your favorite if you believe him/her to be CW, and the electorate to be super-devious.
Anyway, all this misses the main point of my posting: Truncation will always happen on a large scale, and it will be nonstrategic truncation. A whole different problem from offensive strategy, on a vastly larger scale.
I'd said:
I always say that under certain plausible conditions, it won't be necessary to do other than rank sincerely.
You say:
You think that voters should give full sincere rankings in WV? I thought we agreed that voters should only rank one of the two major party candidates (or truncate after reaching their approval cutoff, or truncate after reaching their compromise candidate, or something along those lines...), in order to assure that attempted burying strategies (OOR) by the other "side", as it were, could only backfire.
I reply:
...if the electorate is extremelly devious, yes. In oiur EM polls, and other Internet wv polls, we all ranked sincerely and completely, and most would probably do the same in public elections. At least until such time as an OOR problem appeared (but one probably won't appear).
Speaking for myself, personally, I wouldn't rank anyone below my Approval cutoff, just because they don't deserve a vote. But I'd rank my Approval set candidates sincerely without concern, because of the guarantees of SFC and GSFC. AERLO and ATLO would afford further assurance.
But that's a good question: I believe we should all be a lot more particular whom we vote for. And that means that in rank-balloting we should be very particular whom we rank. Not so much for strategic reasons, but just because we shouldn't rank people who don't deserve a vote. It's important to show such candidates that they don't deserve a vote, and show other voters that too.
But, if there were no undeserving candidates, would I suggest truncation just to deter OOR? No, not unless OOR became a problem. I wouldn't bother people about that problem that will probably never be a problem.
But I would always ask people to not rank people who don't deserve a vote, such as someone like John Dean or Kerry, etc.
To be continued
Mike Ossipoff
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