voting simple illustration

All,

It seems to me that a lot of illustrations and Chaals' descriptions
have been fairly complicated about strategic voting and many
candidates, but it strikes me that the current TAG election is
actually an excellent simple illustration.

We have 4 candidates for a single seat.  Of course, they are all
qualified, but we're voting here so lets be honest, you're going to to
pick someone you think would be best at this stage of things. In my
mind, I'm having trouble picking between two candidates which I both
see as having more pros than the other two, and I slightly prefer one
to the other in a single regard.  The point is, I'll be considerably
happier if either or my preferences win, and considerably less so if
the others win.  The strategic voting question and rationale for
preferential expression is all right there.

If I think that A is slightly better than B for some subtle reason,
but that both A and B are better than C or D, there is no way to
express that.  If B is better known, they have a better chance of
winning.  Do I throw in with them because I think that they have the
best mix of "can actually win and is the best candidate?"  Do I talk
to my friends about "A or B"?  This means that they'll split a vote
whereas very possibly C or D won't, and C will walk away with it...
Even though very possibly most people agree with the idea that both A
and B are preferable to C.

At the end of the day, this is kind of silly because the above isn't
that complicated - if I could say "I slightly prefer A to B, but I
significantly prefer A and B to C and D" then we'd yield the result
that the most people are the most happy with.

-- 
Brian Kardell :: @briankardell :: hitchjs.com

Received on Thursday, 21 August 2014 16:56:48 UTC