Since QV appears, on the face of it at least, to be a single-round blind auction, why would it not be vulnerable to bad signalling and consequent price distortion? As another poster commented below, all players are blindly speculating on the real price of a win.
Take any vote as an example. One side announces they will pay a mighty sum (or have already marshalled a sufficiency) towards a vote Con to scare off those supporting an opposing vote Pro.
Pro voters may react either by believing this signal (and not voting/ buying in at all) or issuing their own claims - all are strongly incentivised to exaggerate their own preferences and strength of support prior to the vote.
Bad signalling is bound to occur AFAICT
1. To win the vote cheaply with FUD by scaring off both the apathetic (apathetes, let's call them that) and some percentage of the previously committed.
2. To punish the winning side financially (maximising Winner's Curse) in case of my side losing. This benefits the losers by weakening the winners as a precautionary measure for the next round of voting on some other issue too. That is, I may be likely to oppose the opponents of gay marriage on other issues too, for example. So it's 'worth it' to hurt them.
As an aside, QV appears to have a limited concept of time and the irrational (pre-vote FUD, post-vote revenge) alike. There is a distinct taste of 'rational actors' acting rationally (when will they learn?) underpinning the scheme generally.
3. To benefit from maximising pro-rata payout if you are a canny apathete.
I must be missing something very obvious here and would be delighted to be corrected. Otherwise QV looks like a fascinating, useful and interesting probe for tabletop scenarios (using virtual currencies for expressing trivial preferences, say).
Take any vote as an example. One side announces they will pay a mighty sum (or have already marshalled a sufficiency) towards a vote Con to scare off those supporting an opposing vote Pro.
Pro voters may react either by believing this signal (and not voting/ buying in at all) or issuing their own claims - all are strongly incentivised to exaggerate their own preferences and strength of support prior to the vote.
Bad signalling is bound to occur AFAICT
1. To win the vote cheaply with FUD by scaring off both the apathetic (apathetes, let's call them that) and some percentage of the previously committed.
2. To punish the winning side financially (maximising Winner's Curse) in case of my side losing. This benefits the losers by weakening the winners as a precautionary measure for the next round of voting on some other issue too. That is, I may be likely to oppose the opponents of gay marriage on other issues too, for example. So it's 'worth it' to hurt them.
As an aside, QV appears to have a limited concept of time and the irrational (pre-vote FUD, post-vote revenge) alike. There is a distinct taste of 'rational actors' acting rationally (when will they learn?) underpinning the scheme generally.
3. To benefit from maximising pro-rata payout if you are a canny apathete.
I must be missing something very obvious here and would be delighted to be corrected. Otherwise QV looks like a fascinating, useful and interesting probe for tabletop scenarios (using virtual currencies for expressing trivial preferences, say).