A few days ago Blake posted an example to show that, even with VA, voters could benefit by not ranking their favorite 1st. For 1 thing, I've been quite clear, in my discussion of the 1st Choice Criterion, that I'm talking about people being forced to abandon their favorite as a defensive strategy. That means for protecting the win of a CW that you need to beat someone worse, or the achieve something that a majority wants (including someone's defeat). Blake didn't say anything about his example having a CW, and so we can assume that it's a sincere, natural cyclical majority. So much for there being a CW-protecting defensive strategy problem. Abandoning favorite to gain a majority wish? Sure, those voters Blake named could do that to accomplish that. But the fact that that's _one_ way it could be done isn't really relevant to what I've been saying. I'm talking about voters being forced to use drastic defensive strategy, not about them choosing needlessly to. In VA, any majority can get its way without giving up 1st place position for anyone's favorite. In that particular example, if I remember it correctly, the C voters vote B over C to make B win, to defeat A who'd have otherwise won. But the majority who don't want A to win have an easy way to ensure it: Don't vote for A. If you don't want A to win, don't vote for him. You have a problem with that? Mike
