<div>Thomas,</div><div><br></div><div>Before I even begin to respond specifically to your comments, I would ask you to read a couple of links that are specific to this. You seem to be exhibiting a lot of the concerns of "exploitation of sincere voters" with Score Voting. We believe this is a huge logical fallacy. Here's why.</div>
<div><br></div><div><a href="http://www.electology.org/tactical-voting">http://www.electology.org/tactical-voting</a></div><div><meta charset="utf-8"><a href="http://scorevoting.net/RVstrat6.html">http://scorevoting.net/RVstrat6.html</a> (see the part about "No Math Skills")</div>
<div><a href="http://scorevoting.net/ShExpRes.html">http://scorevoting.net/ShExpRes.html</a></div><div><br></div><div>Here's a succinct thought experiment to illustrate the fallacy I'm talking about. Say we have these "expected utility values" for a random strategic or honest voter, using both Score Voting and some hypothetical "strategy-proof" system, as follows:</div>
<div><br></div><div>Sincere StrategyProof voter: 6</div><div>Strategic StrategyProof voter: 6 (since sincere and tactical behavior here are identical)</div><div>Sincere Score voter: 8</div><div>Strategic Score voter: 12</div>
<div><br></div><div>The fallacy would be to criticize Score Voting based on the notion that the sincere voter is harmed relative to the strategic voter. It's a fallacy because it's comparing two different voters under the <i>same</i> system, instead of the <i>same</i> voter under two <i>different</i> systems. Obviously the sincere voter is better off with Score Voting in this scenario, even though the strategic voter is even better off still.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Another fallacy, which I discuss again below, is the "fallacy of added choice". For instance, say you get to use Score Voting instead of Plurality Voting. You claim to have a "dilemma", that you can't decide whether to vote sincerely or strategically with Score Voting. But that is a fallacy. You are clearly better off than you were under Plurality. If you think it is too mentally taxing to ponder whether to vote sincerely or strategically, the worst case scenario is that you can just vote in what is effectively Plurality Style, by just giving a perfect 10 score to a single candidate, and leaving all other candidates with zero points. Then you are absolutely no worse off than you were before. You have not been harmed. Nothing has been taken away from you.</div>
<div><br></div><div>In fact, you could look at it in an even more extreme way. With Score Voting, your expected utility will be so much greater, that you could abstain from voting <i>entirely</i>, and you'd <i>still</i> be statistically more happy with election results. The infinitesimal effect that your ballot has on an election <i>pales</i> in comparison to the aggregate effect that the voting method has on the election.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Now to respond inline, somewhat redundantly to what I just said...</div><div><br></div>On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 2:01 AM, Thomas Dukleth <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:kohalist@agogme.com">kohalist@agogme.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><div class="im">even prior to reading much about score voting I</div>
had independently and intuitively taken much of the same conclusions about strategy.</blockquote><div><br></div><div>Well then you did better than I did. I made some pretty silly assumptions until Warren Smith corrected me. Mainly because I was approaching it from the point of view of a hypothetical voter in a hypothetical election, instead of as a real voter in a real particular election.</div>
<div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">Optimal score voting strategy may be intuitive to many people but does<br>
introduce a complexity to voting for which people are unaccustomed and<br>
raises the dilemma between honest voting and strategic voting.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I don't think people are unaccustomed to rating things. Check out Yelp reviews.</div><div><br></div><div>As for strategic vs. honest voting, the same is true of <i>every</i> deterministic voting method.</div>
<div><br></div><div>And I think it's pretty clearly a fallacy to see this as a problem or a "dilemma". The current system effectively lets you give a "10" to just one candidate, and 0's to all the others. Our system would let you use intermediate scores, and not have to give every other candidate a 0. There's absolutely no dilemma. If you feel that it would be detrimental to you to have to consider which option to pick, you can just skip that consideration entirely and give only one candidate a 10, just as if you are pretending to be using Plurality Voting.</div>
<div><br></div><div>I'm tempted to create a term for this, like "The Fallacy of Added Choice" or something like that, although I'm sure it already exists in the field of economics.</div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
Difficulties of voting strategy are the most significant weakness of score<br>
voting (range voting) and need to be understood by the electorate and even<br>
better constrained by limitations to avoid mimicing the problems of voting<br>
methods which often fail to maximise voter preferences.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>This seems massively refuted by mathematical analysis. The basic strategy with Score Voting is to give a 10 to the candidate you would have voted for with Plurality Voting, plus everyone you like better. The hard part of that is deciding who you would support with Plurality Voting, which you obviously already have to do anyway. Once you've voted for that candidate, it's trivial to give a 10 to all candidates you like better.</div>
<div><br></div><div>And while this might not seem immediately obvious, it would clearly flow naturally from existing voter behavior. Right now, a Nader supporter who is strategic may vote for Gore. Under Score Voting, that decision would play out essentially the same. He would start by saying, "Okay, I'm going to give Gore a 10, and leave Bush with a zero." Then he would say, "oh wow, I can still go ahead and give Nader a 10 as well -- neat!" And that's that. No appreciable added complexity. No falling sky.</div>
<div><br></div><div>I respectfully think you're trying to address a non-existent "problem".</div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
Revoting to consensus may be helpful for some problems of voting strategy<br>
with score voting.</blockquote><div><br></div><div>Well, if you don't have information, you can use the "zero info" strategy, where you just give a 10 to every candidate you like better than the average of all candidates. I believe that may actually be <i>better</i> than voting with information about the relative candidate strengths.</div>
<div><br></div><div>But in any case, the "revoting" already happens naturally in real life, because of pre-election polls, primaries, etc. And even if you did NOTHING to improve the honestly reported information, it seems that Score Voting would still be a lot better than every other remotely feasible system.</div>
<div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">Most people may<br>
think that voting should be simpler and that voting should not need an<br>
understanding of voting strategy.</blockquote><div><br></div><div>You do not "need" an understand of voting strategy with Score Voting. You could just vote sincerely, and you'd still get a much better average satisfaction than you did with Plurality Voting, using all the strategy in the world.</div>
<div><br></div><div>In fact, you could just stop voting entirely, and you'd <i>still</i> be better off as a non-voter in a Score Voting society, because all the other voters would be using Score Voting.</div><div><br>
</div><div>Thanks,</div><div>Clay</div><div><br></div></div>-- <br><b><font color="#333333">Clay Shentrup</font></b><div><b><font color="#333333">Secretary, Director</font></b></div><div><b><font color="#333333">The Center for Election Science</font></b></div>
<div><b><font color="#333333"><a href="http://www.electology.org/" target="_blank">http://www.electology.org/</a></font></b></div><div><b><font color="#333333">206.801.0484</font></b></div><br>