Hi Forest,

> De : Forest Simmons <[email protected]>
>
>On Thu, Oct 10, 2013 at 9:23 AM, Kevin Venzke <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>Hi Forest, 
>
>>Unfortunately, I realized that an SFC problem is possibly egregious:
>>
>>51 A>B
>>49 C>B
>>
>>B would win easily, contrary to SFC (which disallows both B and C). But more 
>>alarmingly it's a majority favorite problem.
>>
>
>So it is non-majoritarian in the same sense that Approval is.  In this case 
>the count is too close for approval voters to drop their second preferences, 
>so B will be the Approval winner.  Of course with perfect information, they 
>would bullet, and A would win.  Philosophically, in this situation I 
>sympathize with electing the candidate broader support (the "consensus 
>candidate") over the mere majority favorite, which is why Approval's failure 
>of (one version of) the Majority Criterion has never bothered me.
>

Well, as an Approval scenario this is pretty inexplicable. It suggests to me 
that the pre-election polling is not working. There should generally be two 
frontrunners, but both A and C factions are voting as though their favorite is 
not one of the two. That's odd to the point that I don't know how to say who 
should win based purely on the ballots.

In a rank ballot setting, where you can see the majority, I think there's a 
risk of that majority complaining about the outcome and asking for a different 
method to be adopted.



>
>Jobst and I have gone to a lot of trouble to contrive methods that make B the 
>game theoretic winner in the face of such preferences.  I'm sure you remember 
>his challenge to find a method that makes B the perfect information game 
>theoretic winner when utilities are given by (say)
>
>
>60 A(100), B(70)
>
>40 C(100), B(50)
>
>
>It seems that only lottery methods can solve this challenge in a satisfactory 
>way.  We co-authored a paper with the double entendre title of "Some Chances 
>for Consensus" on this topic for the benefit of people who take the "tyranny 
>of the majority" problem seriously.
>

Yes, I read that paper. It was very interesting. It doesn't fit my perception 
of a proposable method, which is fine. It's just that IA/MPO, at first glance, 
seems pretty proposable. Not just the properties but the fact that the name is 
also the definition.



>
>In light of this fact I propose the following variation on our method:
>
>
>1. Eliminate all candidates that have higher MPO than IA.
>
>
>2.  Elect the remaining candidate with the greatest difference between its IA 
>and its MPO.
>
>
>I like differences better than ratios in this context, but I used ratios in 
>IA/MPO because I worried about people who couldn't easily agree that (25 - 30) 
>>  (72 - 90) , for example.  But now that we know eliminating all of the 
>negative differences is possible without eliminating all of the candidates, 
>let's switch to differences.
>

Well, if the elimination in step 1 recalculates MPO for step 2, you probably 
lose FBC.

Hrm. MDDA's approach (i.e. for satisfying Majority Favorite, and SFC more 
broadly) is that if your MPO >.5 then you mostly can't win. MAMPO's approach is 
that if your IA is >.5 then only your MPO is considered, not your IA. I wonder 
if there are any other options. Both of these approaches are kind of drastic, 
and I don't think a method "needs" to completely satisfy SFC.

Kevin Venzke
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