Lomax says:
But we should not let this distract us from the fact that utility
analysis is really the *only* approach to judging how well election
methods perform, it is not like we have other methods competing with it.
Election criteria might be considered such methods, but they are
clearly indirect. Even the most basic of them, such as the Majority
Criterion as usually defined, is clearly flawed in that we can easily
propose election scenarios, and not rare ones but common ones, where
it requires results that by any reasonable definition of election
success are defective.
I comment:
Those are incredibly ignorant statements.
The fact that two criteria are incompatible doesn't mean that one of them
requires defective results. And the fact that majority rule is incompatible
with maximizing summed utility when everyone (hypothetically) votes
sincerely doesn't mean that criteria relating to majority rule require a
defective result.
Of course, even with Cardinal Ratings (CR), the pizza majority can easily
get its way. Likewise in political elections.
Lomax, for the little-caring majority to outvote the strongly-caring
minority is not a defective result, except, typically, to people who are new
to the subject.
As I said, criteria tell what must or cant happen. Some are of more
interest to a particular person than others are. I consider it important to
minimize the class of situations that require defensive strategy, and the
drasticness of that strategy. Thats because, as Ive said, to the extent
that people are strategically prevented from voting their preferences,
democracy becomes a joke. No method can respond to preferences that arent
voted because of strategic fear.
FBC, SFC, GSFC, SDSC, and WDSC are about that concern. CR doesnt meet most
of those, though it meets one of them. Does that mean that those criteria
require a defective result, when we unrealistically assume that everyone
votes sincerely? It depends on what you consider more important: Freedom
from strategic need to not vote ones preferences, or maximizing summed
utility when everyone hypothetically votes sincerely.
As I said before I quit that discussion, what happens when everyone votes
sincerely doesnt matter a whole lot if the method causes people to not vote
sincerely.
Lomax says:
If the Majority Criterion is
satisfied by a single-stage election method involving choices among
three or more options, the majority has not consented to the result,
unless this is somehow made explicit.
I reply:
What an odd claim.
One could hold a 2nd balloting, an up/down vote on the 1st ballotings
winner. But few would want to waste time and money in that way.
The proposals that have been made that a Range election, where the
Condorcet winner and the Range winner differ, be followed by a
top-two runoff approach more directly the real majority right of
decision.
I reply:
The CW would win a 2-candidate race with any one of the other candidates. Or
maybe you mean that the majority would generously decide to give the
election away. Again, it would be an unjustified waste of time and money.
Mike Ossipoff
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