Question:
Won't candidates eliminate their strongest competitors in the selection process just to improve their own chances of winning?  Won't this have a detrimental effect on the candidate selection process?

Answer:
This is not a trivial question, but the answer is fairly straightforward. If a participant votes to eliminate his most formidable competitors, he will presumably vote to advance the most unattractive candidates - thinking that he will look better compared to the others. Ironically, he does not improve his odds, rather the odds of the “worst” candidates. If other participants attempt the same strategy the worst candidate will be selected in that round for that district. But - we have confidence in our countrymen will quickly spot the small number of unpatriotic, self-serving imbeciles that will try to game the system this way.  How?  Those that think and behave this way are generally easy to identify. As the rounds progress, their true colors will be revealed. In addition, as they advance through the rounds they will be faced with an increasing number of outstanding candidates and will have a difficult time choosing exactly who to vote against, as well as difficulty surviving the early voting rounds themselves. Finally, each candidate will have signed a binding agreement before they entered the system that they will not attempt to game it – at risk of being removed. The GOOOH system will have the ability to review the voting record of each advancing candidate, identify behavior that is suspect, and disqualify any candidate that has has deliberately sabotaged the system.

-- 9/27/2007 8:27:16 PM.