One of the features of SODA is a step where the candidates decide what their approval cutoffs will be.on behalf of themselves and the voters for whom they are acting as proxies. One of the many novel features is that instead of making these decisions simultaneously, the candidates make them sequentially with full knowledge of the decisions of the candidates preceding them in the sequence.
I wonder if anybody has ever tried a DSV (designated strategy voting) method based on these ideas. Here's one way it could go: Voters submit range ballots. Factions are amalgamated via weighted averages, so that each candidate ends up with one faction that counts according to its total weight. For large electorates, these faction scores will almost surely yield complete rankings of the candidates. >From this point on, only these rankings will be used. The ratings were only >needed for the purpose of amalgamating the factions. If we had started with rankings, we could have converted them to ratings via the method of my recent post under the subject "Borda Done Right." In either case, once we have the rankings from the amalgamated factions we proceed as follows: Based on these rankings the DSC (descending solid coalitions) winner D is found. The D faction ranking determines the sequential order of play. When it is candidate X's turn in the order of play, X's approval cutoff decision is made automatically as follows: For each of the possible cutoffs, the winner is determined recursively (by running through the rest of the DSV tentatively). The cutoff that yields the best (i.e. highest ranked) candidate according to X's faction's ranking, is the cutoff that is applied to X's faction. After all of the cutoffs have been applied, the approval winner (based on those cutoffs) is elected. It would be too good to be true if this method turned out to be monotone. For that to be true moving up one position in the sequence of play could not hurt the winner. Although I think that this is probably usually true, I don't think that it is always true. Anybody know any different? ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
