On Feb 21, 2011, at 2:07 PM, Dave Ketchum wrote: > > HOORAY for thinking! Too rare around here!
Ms Dopp misunderstands burial. Burial is specifically the ability to improve the outcome for your favorite candidate by insincerely ranking your second-choice candidate last (actually a more general formulation of the same idea). That's why it's a strategy: the voter is motivated to misrepresent their true preferences in hopes of improving the outcome. Burial works against compromise by encouraging voters to rank the potential compromise candidate last. > > Dave Ketchum > > On Feb 21, 2011, at 4:27 PM, Kathy Dopp wrote: > >> I can't help wondering why anyone would think it beneficial to have >> either later-no-harm or burial prevention in a voting method. Here is >> why: >> >> 1. later-no-harm prevents finding compromise candidates, and thus is >> not a desirable feature of a voting method, and >> >> 2. if a voter tries to bury a candidate, then logically it can only be >> (unless the voter is acting against his own interests) because he >> would rather have any other candidate more than the candidate he tries >> to bury. Allowing a voter to express which candidate he would like >> least is a good feature, not a bad one. All the talk about a voter >> preferring in truth a candidate 2nd and then burying that candidate >> below other candidates he prefers less, and thus giving those other >> candidates he prefers even less a better chance, well is simply >> illogical drivel. >> >> So why all the talk of trying to invent voting methods that have two >> very bad traits - later-no-harm and disallowing burial? I don't see >> why anyone would want to spend the time trying to devise such a flawed >> voting method as to prohibit finding compromise candidates that more >> voters like and to prohibit a voter from ability to contribute to >> preventing his least favorite choice from winning. >> >> Kathy > > > ---- > Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
