Richard said: Something I like about margins, and that is also relevant to the concerns of a voting public. Mike had stated he prefers a method that overrules fewer voters. My illustration relates overruling to a distance on the diagram. The distance Mike chooses to measure is much farther than the true distance involved in dropping a defeat. To drop a defeat, you only need to move it as far as the tie line. Mike would move it all the way to the no-winning-votes line, which gives a distorted measure of the amount of overruling that takes place. I reply: In other words, Richard's whole argument about overruling has to do with his diagram. Yes, Richard, the diagram is only an illustration of the relations that are diagrammed. On overruling, my point has been that if A beats B, then it isn't possible for the voting system to overrule the B>A voters, because they're already overruled by the more numerous A>B voters. The voting system didn't overrule them. They just lost. So when we don't drop the A>B defeat, we aren't overruling anyone. If we drop the A>B defeat, we're overruling all the A>B voters. You be the judge then--which interpretation of what overruling means make more sense? But I also clarified that overruling isn't my main concern. I'm more concerned about the lesser-of-2-evils problem, and majority rule. Margins, as I said, erases majority information, and its violations that I posted, with the examples, demonstrate its easy tendency to retain the lesser-of-2-evils problem. Richard quotes me: Now Anthony says "It had nothing to do with what voters want." Yes, Anthony, that was my point. You've gotten it right again. Very good. Richard says: Mike has taken Anthony out of context here. Anthony was referring to Mike's statement about margins looking "nice on a certain diagram" when he made that statement. I reply: Can Anthony & Richard ever let that diagram statement rest?? Richard continues: Mike's original approach to criticising my illustration was to trivialize it. So Mike's original criticism was not really about voter concerns, was it? I reply: Sure it was. It was about the fact that your arguments are quite irrelevant to voter concerns. Richard continues: Personally I think this matter has been beaten to death already I reply: And yet you & Anthony can't seem to let go of it. Richard continues: Clearly there are differences of opinion. Mike is more concerned about protecting the sincere CW than about voter overruling. For me the priorities are reversed. I reply: Protecting a sincere CW is important to me. That goal can be regarded as an extension of the Condorcet Criterion, which is widely accepted, but which, to me, isn't worth much by itself. But surely I've sufficiently repeated what's important to me: Getting rid of the lesser-of-2-evils problem, and protecting majority rule. Richard continues: Based on my different priorities I rate margins somewhat higher than winning votes. In spite of what Mike said in an earlier post, I never contradicted him on the possibility of strategic collapse in margins. I do think collapse and reversal are high-risk strategies (done to increase chances of best-case utility while at the same time making the worst case more likely, without necessarily achieving an overall increase in utility expectation), so they probably won't be as prevalent as Mike thinks. I reply: As I said, truncation has been common in every rank-balloting that I've participated in. My Margins order-reversal example, the 201,200,100 example, shows how ridiculously easy successful order-reversal is in Margins. So don't be so sure no one will find that out. As I said, I myself would often be taking advantage of that easy opportunity, and advising others to do the same. Risk? Not so great in Margins. And not everyone finds a significant merit difference among their disliked candidates anyway, and so, for many, there couldn't be significant risk. But if I haven't said this I should have: The defensive strategy criteria don't stipulate offensive strategy in their premise. SFC & GSFC only stipulate _no_ falsification. There's nothing about the defensive strategy criteria that would make them only apply when there's offensive strategy. Margins can fail those criteria even when there's no offensive strategy. My Margins failure examples can be described, without changing the rankings, in a way that has no offensive strategy. Order-reversal or truncation against a sincere CW is one interpretation of examples in which Margins fails the defensive strategy criteria, but the criteria aren't specifically about offensive strategy, and those Margins failure examples can be described and explained with no mention of offensive strategy. Richard continues: Besides, I don't elevate these problems to the same level of importance Mike does. I reply: Fine, your standards are different, and you are _not_ wrong because your standards don't relate to the things that are important to voters. Richard continues: Approval or any form of Condorcet will be so much better than the silly IRV or Borda alternatives to single-mark Plurality, and the differences between various forms of Condorcet are small compared to the differences between Approval or Condorcet and the silly methods. Those who agree on this point should at least unite behind any wasted "reform" effort such as IRV. I reply: But, if you want to really get rid of the strategy problem that now makes millions of people dump their favorite, then you don't want Margins; and the merit difference between Margins & wv is not small. I consider Approval to be about as good as wv. Mike Ossipoff _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
