On 29.5.2011, at 5.07, Kevin Venzke wrote: > Hi Juho, > > --- En date de : Sam 28.5.11, Juho Laatu <[email protected]> a écrit : >>> Margins elects A here: >>> 35 A>B >>> 25 B >>> 40 C >>> >>> Is this going to be defensible when this method is >> proposed? Can you >>> argue a case for A without mindreading off of the >> blank areas of the >>> ballots? >> >> I guess the common assumption is that the unranked >> candidates are considered to be tied at the last position. >> So, vote "B" should be read "B>A=C". >> >> (The intended meaning of "B" and "B>A=C" is thus the >> same by default. Some methods may however have an implicit >> "approval" cutoff at the end of the explicitly ranked >> candidates. In that case vote "B" should be interpreted "B | >> A=C" and "B>A=C" should be interpreted "B>A=C |", but >> I consider that to be a special case. If the voter has some >> preference between A and C (and she wants to express it), >> then the voter should mark that in the ballot, since >> otherwise there is no other sensible interpretation but that >> A and C should be treated as equal. If there are so many >> potential winners in the election that one can not expect >> all voters to rank all potential winners, then we may lose >> some of the information that the voters wanted to give. I'm >> not sure if I answered properly to the mindreading point >> here but those were my thoughts anyway.) > > The mindreading point is that you are having to say "if the voters > wanted to say something they could have said it." I'm not sure this will > be persuasive because you can't offer an assurance that those voters > could vote that way without risking something. This is why I suggest that > you had better force voters to rank everyone in a margins method.
In som sense margins does this. Vote "B" gives the same result as half vote "B>A>C" and half vote "B>C>A" together. Or statistically the results are the same if all uncertain voters will flip a coin and vote either way. > > In WV A and C will be considered as equal, too - it just won't count > that voter as a schizophrenic who always feels 50% cheated no matter what > happens between the two. This was not an easy explanation :-). Juho > > Kevin > ---- > Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
