> Perhaps some artificial inteligence tool, like neural networks or genetic > algorithms, or a combination of both, could be used to search SociallyBest > (zero BR), or at least get near it. If such formula is found, it could be > truly complex or iloggical, something like a "black box" voting method, > but mathematically very good.
Zero BR is impossible with strategic voters; that would mean electing the candidate that maximizes aggregate utility. But if that's what you're doing, then voters will be motivated to lie about their utility functions. It doesn't matter what sort of contortions you use in designing the method. With honest, perfectly introspective voters, you could just ask everyone to report their utility functions and sum them up. But such voters are a fantasy. The difficulty with evolving a voting method is that you don't know what strategic voting would look like. Maybe you could evolve the voting strategies too, but I expect you'd have pretty major issues with local optima. Peter de Blanc ---- election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
