Warren says: So we have proven a sense in which range is superior to EVERY pure-rank-ballot voting method...
I reply: But all kinds of methods are better than eachother in some sense or other. Warren continues: Remaining Open question: what happens if we permit rank order votes to have EQUALITIES in them? I reply: Surely Warren knows that all of our rank-method proposals allow eaual ranking. It's one thing to say that RV is adequate for pubic elections (it is), but it's another thing to say that it's the best. RV penalizes honest voting in the most transparent way, which I call the "sucker-abuse problem". Sincere voters can be had by strategizing voters. In public elections one could say that that's ok, if sincere voting is more important to them than maximum-power voting. It doesn't really bother me in that application, in fact it could be beneficial for our public elections. But there are situations where you _wouldn't_ consider that problem ok. Approval doesn't have that problem. There's little if any difference between a sincere ballot and a strategic ballot. Rank methods can offer criterion compliances that RV can't offer. Rank-method-only criteria that I value, for instance, are SFC and SDSC, which, when complied with, greatly increase the degree to which voters are free from strategy considerations. BeatpathWinner isn't needed for public elections, because, in public elections, where pairwise ties are vanishingly rare, Schwartz-Sequential-Dropping (SSD) gives the same result, and is more plausible and natural to propose. For public elections, SSD would be my best suggestion. Kevin's FBC-complying method offers more for the very most timid voters, while SSD offers a little more for voters influenced by hope rather than fear. I suggest that it's between those two, for the best public-election method. The choice would depend on the nature of the electorate. I feel that it's better to start out opimistic and offer SSD. But then it's also true that Kevin's method is simpler to define, and that can be a decisive concern. Mike Ossipoff ---- election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
