On Dec 10, 2007, at 16:40 , Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
At 01:12 AM 12/5/2007, Juho wrote:
On Dec 5, 2007, at 5:24 , Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
If someone can buy a candidate's withdrawal, they could presumably
also buy the candidate if the candidate wins, and the latter is
actually more dangerous!
Buying the withdrawal of a losing candidate is probably cheaper.
Cheaper and less effective. Essentially, one is buying fewer votes.
Now, how is the winner going to know that he should be grateful to
Mr. Bigpockets for the bribe? Tell him, it might backfire. (Either
the winner is ethical and reports the attempt to align him with Mr.
Bigpocket's desires, or he is not and, of course, wants more money,
and what was paid to the loser isn't of any benefit to him.... he
*might* think it was, and *might* go along, but it's risky for
Bigpockets. Buy the winner and you have control over the process of
legislation. Buy a loser, you merely gain a shaky opportunity.
The deal could be e.g. such that there are three looped candidates
A>B>C>A. A has the smallest defeat and is about to win before the
"withdrawal rounds". Candidate B can now withdraw and make C the
winner. C offers B some nice position to B for a withdrawal (C will
be the winner so he can arrange this).
B may also actually prefer C to A and will withdraw from that reason
since based on the results B>C>A was probably a common opinion among
the C supporters, and maybe B's personal opinion too.
B might claim that the reason for his withdrawal is the high number
of strategic votes that made A unjustly the winner. We have no way of
knowing if that is the truth.
Juho
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