Stephane Rouillon wrote:
You maximize the power of your vote by voting for half of the candidates.No; if you have no knowledge of the polls, you should vote for every candidate above your MEAN candidate, not your MEDIAN candidate. So if you love one candidate and hate all the others, you should vote only for the loved candidate in the zero-information case, since only that candidate is above average.
This would be the optimal strategy if you had no knowledge from pre-election polls.
However, the optimal strategy with information obtained from polls, is to vote for yourNo again. If your favorite candidate is in last place in the polls, this strategy suggests you should vote for every candidate, which is obviously a waste. What you probably meant to say is, "vote for **the candidate you would vote for in a plurality election** and any other candidate you like that the poll says it would beat **that candidate**. This assumes that you would vote "lesser-of-two-evils" in a plurality race.
favourite and any other candidate you like that the poll says it would beat your
favourite.
This strategy is pretty good, but it's not quite the best - there are situations where this approach could make you regret your vote, even if the polls are fairly accurate. A better strategy is, "vote for anyone you like more than the front runner, and the front runner as well if you like him/her more than the second place candidate." The only difference here is that if you like the second place candidate more than the first place candidate, you will vote for candidates you like more than one but less than the other.
-Adam
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