Dave Ketchum wrote:
We need provision for breaking ties. I offer a thought that avoids
tossing coins:
If counts are even, give candidate with lower name an extra vote.
If counts are odd, give candidate with higher name an extra vote.
Big deal is I am an enemy of lotteries in voting:
Hard to come up with a formula for conducting the lottery.
Hard to prove the formula has been obeyed - cheating in the
counting is obviously tempting.
Some methods of voting can inspire extra temptation for strategizing -
and temptation to try to counteract suspected strategizing. Avoiding
such voting methods may be the most practical way to avoid the problem.
Some supposed strategizing assumes shared knowledge and plotting that
does not deserve attempts to counteract because the supposed sharing of
knowledge and planning is not practical in real elections.
Another option is this: use the total count as the seed for a good
pseudorandom number generator. True, it can be tricked by simply
calculating (add write-in ballots until it goes one's way), but if the
adversary has power to disturb the counts so that it sums to a
particular value, your method won't work either.
Your method can in any event be generalized: if there's an n-way tie,
order the candidates from 0 to n exclusive in alphabetical order, then
calculate x = (total mod n). Count up to x (first is zero), and that
candidate gets an extra vote. There may be some (weak) statistical
problems if one can guess the range of total - something about how some
digits will appear slightly more often than others - if that breaks the
scheme, use a PRNG or hash.
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