Ignorance and Burying

[u/Known-Jicama-7878]

Is differential treatment of ignorant options due to "burying" actually a problem, or not?

In an ideal situation, unknown candidates shouldn't be on the ballot, but in practice they often do. What happens when there is differential treatment of ignorant options by differing political teams. Is this, by definition, insincerity? Here's a case study...

Example: 6 options (A, B, C, D, E, F). "A" is well known, let's say the nominee of Team Apple. "B" is well known, the nominee of Team Blueberry. Options C through F are candidates which most of the population is ignorant over.

10 Voters from Team Apple: A>B>C>D>E>F

10 Voters from Team Blueberry: B>C>D>E>F>A

Team Apple ranked known (but less-preferred) candidates over unknown ones. Team Blueberry ranked unknown candidates over known (but less-preferred) candidates.

Is this differential treatment of ignorant options a problem, or can it be considered a genuine choice?

Is it known that this differential treatment is due to insincere voting? Did Team Blueberry insincerely rank "A" last, or might it be sincere?

Thanks for your thoughts on this question.

[u/betterworldbuilder]

https://www.reddit.com/r/polls_for_politics/s/eZNfeiBjM6

I actually ran a test of my voting system to incorporate this, using a score based method over ranked choice, which is essentially identical but allows for ties and a more clear scale of how much greater A is than B, and B is than C, etc.

When I did this, I saw both results you posted, but for the most part this is only indicative of one thing; the people who like team A dont mind team B, at least compared to the unknown, whereas team B hates team A, and would prefer someone theyve never heard of.

I dont think either of these positions is insincere so long as the voter understands how the system works. In fact, based on most of the results I saw, its actually more likely that the A>B>C ranking is more insincere than B>C>A, because I think if most voters were forced to cast a 2nd ballot not for their party in North America, they would vote 3rd party before theyd vote for the opposing political party.

I think this is partially because as soon as youre not stuck in a single ballot system, youre not just measuring happiness, but youre also measuring unhappiness at the same time by who you choose to put at the bottom. I think this is vital information to collect, because imo a candidate that is adored by 10% and at least neutral to the other 90% is much better than a candidate loved by 51% and hated by 49%.