Juho wrote: > On Apr 23, 2007, at 17:40 , Howard Swerdfeger wrote: > >>> Range is expressive and it is able to treat these two different >>> types of "Pro Wrestlers" differently. Its problem is that it in >>> practice easily becomes Approval (only min and max values used) >>> in competitive elections. >> does it? >> I have seen arguments stating that a knowledgeable voter would >> alter there preferences in this manner. But I am unsure if this >> would happen in the reality of a large scale (>10^5 voters) election. > > Let's say that in the U.S. presidential elections roughly 48% of the > voters vote D=9, R=7, PW=1 and roughly 48% vote R=9, D=7, PW=1. > Either D or R wins. In the next elections the Democrats notice the > possibility of strategic voting and advice their supporters to vote > D=9, R=0, PW=0. In these elections Democrats win. In the third > elections Republicans have learned a lesson and now recommend their > voters to vote R=9, D=0, PW=0. Now the election is in balance again, > but the method has in practice reduced to Approval (actually > Plurality in this example).
I agree with the basic math of optimization. But, I still question its application to voter intent. > This strategy doesn't require the voters be rocket scientists. > Probably the strategies would not spread as described above. Maybe > there just would be discussions between voters and in the media and > all parties would be impacted in roughly same speed. In competitive > elections it is quite possible that majority of voters would not stay > "sincere" but would vote in Approval style. Once strategic voting > becomes wide enough to be meaningful to the end result, voting > sincerely could be commonly seen as "donating the victory to the > strategists". A key property of this evolution process is that those > parties and individuals that are strategic will have more voting > power than others (this breaks the possible balance of having same > percentage of strategic voters in each party). I agree strategic voters will have more power. > I think the size of the election doesn't influence much on if voters > become strategic. I think it is more like a balance of media / yellow > press interest, strength of rumours, overall requirement of "good you are probably correct. It might depend on Other values, also. Specifically I feel it might depend largely on the perceived effectiveness honest voting. In America there is a culture of voting for one of the duopoly because in voting for anybody else there is a perceived (and actual) lack of effectiveness. However in Many other Countries, Canada, France, Germany....Votes are given to many different parties in large numbers. I believe that this is because there is often actual/perceived (opposition parties, 2nd round) reward for voting the 3rd or 4th party. In retrospect I might guess that there would be an a direct relationship between number of voters and chance that the election would degrade to approval. In US style Presidential elections where there is 10^8 voters there would be little reward changing your ranking away from the party suggested Dem = 1 Rep = 0 Nader = 0 PW = 0 But with smaller number of voters (10^4 -> 10^5, ie parliamentary system ) average voter opinion would change much quicker (noise) and you might see results (more MP's) within 1 or 2 elections, voting true preference. Your perceived reward for honest voting then goes up. and you are more likely to vote honestly. anyway, (side tracking for a moment) I am mainly of the opinion that very large elections should not be conducted in a single winner method if there is any other possible way. > moral" in the society, and (maybe most importantly) the level of > competitiveness in the elections in question. If by competitiveness you mean 2 candidates close in popularity leading everybody else. > > Juho > > > > > ___________________________________________________________ > The all-new Yahoo! Mail goes wherever you go - free your email address from > your Internet provider. http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html > ---- > election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info ---- election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
