> Or dither if you want to, but don't blame it on the voting system. I think you have misunderstood some key concepts I have been using.
[endquote] I assumed that you meant "dither" by its usual meaning: "Stop dithering and make your choice!" That's the meaning that I use in this posting. (although there can be elements of that in Approval strategy) [endquote] For you yes, because that is your inclination. As I've said, it isn't that Condordet doesn't require strategy. It's just that you usually won't know what its expectation-maximizing strategy is. . I was instead making an analogy, which I think was quite appropriate, to the "dithering" of the graphics world. This is why I also referred to grayscale and black-and-white. Furthermore, since the analogy shows that one's moving quite a bit from the "front end" (the actual voting method) into the "back end" (which may involve polls), it seems that if one's very concerned with strategy, as you are, one should also consider strategy in the back-end. For instance, if I'm a Bush voter in a three-way race, I might report that I'm voting Nader alone. This will make it seem that Nader has sufficient support to win, so the Nader-voters vote for Nader alone. But they've been had, because now Gore lacks the Nader+Gore votes to get past Bush, and Bush wins. [endquote] Polls are a bit questionable, but things that we hear from others provide some information, as will results of previous Approval elections. Polls by the usual pollsters are basically worthless. The above could be formalized by making a DSV version of Approval. If that DSV method is ranked, then one of two things will happen: Either it fails criteria like FBC or monotonicity, which means that Approval+back-end might not be as good as you think, or it doesn't, which means DSV Approval would be a good ranked method on its own. If Approval is good even when people play the strategic game, why not have the method itself play the game for them? [endquote] 1. You want to evaluate Approval's strategy based on the effects on a distant iterative equilibrium. But voters are interested in instrumental strategy. Look that word up. If voters were interested in distant equilibrium, then they'd vote sincerely in Plurality. They strategize instrumentally, only interested in the current election. Current experience with voters, how they vote, what they say, contradicts the assumption that your above remark depends on. 2. And, aside from that, you demonstrated that iterated Approval would have the problems you speak of. Of course I don't advocate iterated Approval. You can feel free to do so if you wish, however. Your analogy with noise, signals and information, though fashionable, is pseudo-technical pretense. Okay. The second concept I think you misunderstood was "half-empty" vs "half-full" and "noise". I'll first explain the first distinction, and then the second. I'll use another analogy here for Condorcet vs Approval. Approval is like an analog TV signal. If you add uncertainty, it degrades a little. Add more noise, and it degrades more until, if the voters have absolutely no idea what they're doing and vote randomly, you have snow. [endquote] Approval's 0-info strategy is to vote for all of the above-mean candidates. ...for all of the candidates whose merit, for you, is above the mean. That's been well-established and has been common knowledge for a long time. Kristofer, you really need to check the accuracy of what you're saying before you post. Range is like Approval in this respect, and MJ is like Condorcet*. When I refer to your "half-empty" view, I refer to that you seem to think that voters (alone, i.e. not coordinated by party central) will add strategy into Condorcet even when they're on the side of the break point where nothing happen [endquote] I told you of my conversations and observations. No, I'm not going to repeat it again for you. I'll give an example first of all. Say you have a three-way 1D election with the Greens to the left, Democrats to the right, and Republicans a little further to the right. The median voter is somewhat to the left of the midpoint between the Greens and the Democrats. Then, for each voter in an Approval election, there is some probability that he gets the "Nader only or Nader+Gore" decision wrong. Say that he "gets it wrong" [endquote] You're dithering again. See above. Re-read some of my previous postings about this. No one knows exactly what way of voting will give the best result for you and your faction. But in Approval there are known strategies that maximize expectation. That won't usually be so for Condorcet. Instead of dithering, just approve whom you like, or use one of the simple expectation-maximizing strategies. if he votes differently than he would after n-> inf iterations of complete information of others' votes in the last round (i.e. the equilibrium which would probably consist of voting Nader alone). Then if enough people get it wrong, the winner will be Gore instead of Nader, and since each voter has some probability of getting it wrong, then there is also some probability of enough people getting it wrong to swing the election to Gore rather than Nader. If the election is three-way and close, that probability could be significant***; and if it swings the wrong way, then I think the voters who voted the wrong way would get very annoyed. At least I would. I would go "so this method burdens me with a quantization decision and if I happen to decide wrongly, possibly through no fault of my own, it punishes me? Is this a joke?". [endquote] See above. To be continued... Mike Ossipoff ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
