On 24.6.2013, at 16.06, Benjamin Grant wrote:

> So, as far as *I* can see, this converts Score Voting into Approval voting.  
> The only people who would bother to vote sincerely are:
> 1)      Those who truly prefer Gore highest and Bush lowest (or vice versa), 
> because there’s no strategic downside.


You seem to assume that voters with opinion 'Gore:75, Nader: 90, Bush: 10’ are 
not strategic when they vote 'Gore:75, Nader: 100, Bush: 0’. There are thus two 
possible levels of sincereness, either people who think that all candidates are 
about equally good should vote that way, or if they should exaggerate and tell 
that the worst one of them is worth 0 points and the best one is worth 100 
points.

> Am I substantially wrong about any of this?

I think you are generally very right about this.

> It’s days like these that I feel that there *is* no way to elect people that 
> is fair and right. L

All methods have some problems. But the problems are not always so bad that 
they would invalidate the method. I'd propose to study also the Condorcet 
compliant methods. I note that they already popped up in the later discussions 
and you more or less already promised to study them.

When compared to Range style utility measuring style Condorcet methods take 
another approach by allowing majorities to decide. With sincere (Range) 
preferences 55: A=100 B=90, 45: B=100 A=0 majority based methods allow A to 
win. Althoug B has clearly higher sum of utiliy, it is also a fact that if one 
would elect B, B would be opposed by 55% majority. A would be supported by 55% 
majority. Not a pretty sight to watch, but that's how majority oriented systems 
are suposed to work. Maybe the majority philosophy is that you will get a ruler 
that can rule (and there is no mutiny), instead of getting a ruler whose 
proposals would be voted against every time by 55% majority in the parliament 
or in public elections.

Juho



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