Hi Forest,

I like this very much!

But how precisely do we implement step (I)? Isn't there the problem that in approval there is no group strategy equilibrium if there's no sincere CW? What winning probabilities would the machine then assign? Maybe those from the "Condorcet Lottery" or those from the Rivest game?

And if there is a "polled" CW, would the machine give it probability 1 and all others 0? If so, it seems it would win, so the whole method would fulfil the "voted CW" criterion.

Jobst


Am 22.11.2010 22:00, schrieb [email protected]:
As I mentioned in my last message, Designated Strategy Voting  (DSV) methods 
almost always fail
monotonicity, even when the base method is monotone.  I promised that I would 
give a general technique for
resolving this technique.

Before I try to keep that promise, let’s think about why DSV is such an 
attractive idea.  I think that there are
two main reasons.  (1) The DSV “machine” is supposed to implement near optimal 
strategy for the voter
based on the information it receives.  (2) The information the machine receives 
is directly from the voters on
election day, so it should be more accurate than any politically manipulated 
polling (dis)information available
to the voters as a basis for forming their own strategies, should they be so 
inclined.

With those points in mind, here is my general remedy:  each voter may submit 
two ballots, the first of which
is understood to be a substitute for the polling information that would be used 
for strategizing in the base
method if there were no DSV.   Then near optimal strategy (assuming the 
approximate validity of this
substitute polling information) for the base method is applied to the second 
set of ballots to produce the
output ballots, which are then counted as in the base method.

That’s the idea.  Let’s see how it might work for a DSV version of Approval, 
which is an ideal candidate for
DSV because all of the near optimal strategies assume fairly accurate polling 
information, and voters averse
to strategizing miss out on the full potential benefit of their vote:

Suppose that the designated strategy for all voters is to approve all 
alternatives with a score greater than the
expected winning score on their score ballot.  The voters submit two score 
ballots, one to substitute for
polling information, and therefore not necessarily sincere, and the other for 
conversion into an approval ballot
by the designated strategy.  Then …

(I)     The winning probabilities are calculated from the first set of ballots 
by some machine that
implements game theoretic and/or statistical ideas.

(II)    Once these approximate winning probabilities have been determined, the 
approval cutoffs are
calculated for each ballot in the second set.  The alternative with the 
greatest approval is elected.

Note that since the base method (Approval) is monotone, step (II) is monotone.  
In other words, if some
voters raise the score of the approval winner on the second set of ballots 
(leaving the first set of ballots
unchanged), the winner will not change.

Of course it is possible that by raising the score of the winning alternative 
on the first (polling) ballot, the
winner could change.  But this possibility already exists (in hidden form) for 
ordinary Approval;  in that
setting the voters can manipulate the polls just as much without destroying the 
reputation of Approval as a
monotonic method.


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