Limitations of spatial models of voting: Difference between revisions

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This is true independently of any abstract mathematical model of reality of human behavior, as it is a constraint of the ballots themselves and their information content. In reality, these distinctions are based on some internal attributes and judgements voters have about the world and the candidates, and this is the information voters want ballots to convey. This is what voting methods attempt to ''represent'' from voters.
This is true independently of any abstract mathematical model of reality of human behavior, as it is a constraint of the ballots themselves and their information content. In reality, these distinctions are based on some internal attributes and judgements voters have about the world and the candidates, and this is the information voters want ballots to convey. This is what voting methods attempt to ''represent'' from voters.


But due to several limitations, not not all these ballots can ''actually get cast'' in an election. In practice, we only observe a few preference orders, indicating that there's a lot of correlation between voters and between candidates, or putting it in another way, that the "space" of attributes relevant in the election is smaller than the one expressible by the ballots. This is important to consider when developing a mathematical structure to abstractly discuss real voting methods and voter behavior.
But due to several limitations, not all these ballots can ''actually get cast'' in an election. In practice, we only observe a few preference orders, indicating that there's a lot of correlation between voters and between candidates, or putting it in another way, that the "space" of attributes relevant in the election is smaller than the one expressible by the ballots. This is important to consider when developing a mathematical structure to abstractly discuss real voting methods and voter behavior.


In other words, while a spatial model attempts to reverse engineer real-life behaviors and construct a model of the information underlying an election, the ballots themselves, be it from real life elections or computer simulations, can only capture some of the information.
In other words, while a spatial model attempts to reverse engineer real-life behaviors and construct a model of the information underlying an election, the ballots themselves, be it from real life elections or computer simulations, can only capture some of the information.
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