On Apr 9, 2010, at 3:03 AM, Kevin Venzke wrote:
Hi Juho,
--- En date de : Jeu 8.4.10, Juho <juho4...@yahoo.co.uk> a écrit :
I more or less despise the election of A in this
scenario:
49 A
24 B
27 C>B
I believe the possibility of this outcome is a
disincentive for a candidate
like C to run.
The story behind these votes seems to be that C is
ideologically close to B and its nomination makes A win
instead of B. If C is ideologically close to B why don't the
"B" voters vote "B>C" (and make C win)?
Because the story is that C is not considered an established candidate
(or a frontrunner), and the B voters (if they actually prefer C, which
is not something I mean to suggest) will not condescend to rank C.
Depending on the method, they could hand the election to C by
ranking C,
and/or alternatively compel C supporters to not vote sincerely.
Ok, but the story is not quite flawless yet.
Case 1: "B" voters did not notice C. B had 51 supporters before the
nomination of C. All that heard of C changed their opinion to "C>B".
If C is so obviously better than B then also some of the "A" voters
should have voted "A>C" (or "A>C" if they feel the other way around
for some reason). But it seems that also they did not notice C. It is
also strange that someone can get 27% support (clearly more support
than B) and still be unknown to so many of the voters.
Case 2: "B" voters did notice C and liked C but didn't want to vote
for C. In this case the votes are not sincere but twisted for some
psychological reasons. (Also some part of "A" voters should have
ranked B or C if they noticed C.)
It seems that the role of non-informed voters and/or non-sincere/
mutinous voters and the surprising emergence of candidate C have a
strong role in the story, and all the blame (of not following the
story (and intended outcome) that was discussed above) can not be put
on margins alone.
The best scenario is for C to be able to run, be voted for
sincerely, and
either win, or not affect the outcome at all.
Yes, that would be ideal.
If C is
ideologically far from B then most "B" voters may vote as
they do now, but then maybe "A" voters should vote "A>B"
(and make B win) (since C seems to be closer to B than A).
It is hard to find an explanation to sincere votes like
this. Or are these maybe strategic votes, e.g. so that
sincere "A>B" voters have decided to vote "A"?
The A voters will not vote A>B because A and B are considered the
frontrunners. (i.e. that is the scenario that concerns me.)
Yes but also this means that "A" voters are badly misinformed when
none of them have heard of C or believe that C is weak although C has
27% first place support (clearly more than B) and all that heard of C
"on the B side" voted for C.
Fundamentally, if I said only one thing: I don't
believe that the margins
ranking of defeat strength (resulting from its
treatment of unranked
candidates) is in agreement with what voters would
expect and want.
What would you consider to be a better approach than
margins for sincere votes? (winning votes has also scenarios
that may be questioned)
Maybe Range? I guess I don't see that question as interesting or
useful.
Yes, Range could be considered more ideal at least for some uses (when
one wants to maximize the sum of utilities) (there are also other
alternatives like minimizing harm to some and seeking majority). The
problem of course is that it is so difficult to collect sincere
ratings. I think the question is important since performance with
sincere votes (= elect the correct winner) is important.
(Note btw that in another mail I just mentioned also the
possibility of allowing B and C to formally team up so that
defeats within their team would not be considered as severe
as defeats between A and the team.)
This doesn't interest me much (same as Forest's suggestion of pre-
election agreements in DYN) because I'm not interested in the case
that
a single party (for all practical purposes) nominates two candidates.
I don't think that will normally happen or be desirable under any
method. What I'm concerned with is the viability of a "third" option
and
voting for the third option.
I don't believe such strong methods like teaming would be generally/
typically needed. But if there are problems then teaming may be a good
way to overcome them (they may e.g. quite efficiently cut out any
strategy considerations). I also understand that in some environments
all "agreements between parties" may be considered to represent too
much some "spirit of old times".
In summary, maybe the "third" party explanation is more what you are
after than the "not heard of C" explanation. In the example "B" and
"A" voters were maybe from some old established parties and they did
not want to recognize the emergence of a "third" new strong candidate.
I believe such problems may well be temporary. If one adopts a new
method that allows also "third" candidates to run in a meaningful way
and with real chances to win if they have strong enough support, then
I'd guess the attitude and problems of ignoring them and not ranking
them could fade out very soon. The two main contenders and voters that
support them can not pretend any more that other candidates do not
exist (one can e.g. not play down a candidate with 27% of the first
preference votes).
Juho
Kevin Venzke
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