Instant-Runoff-1 (was Re: EM vote on SW methods: summary of vote

[Mike Ossipoff]

I agree that IR-1 is better than Approval, because IR-1 actually
contains IRO & Approval, giving a voter the option to vote
as in Approval if he/she wishes, or to vote as in IRO if he/she
wishes, or of course, to use the options of both methods in
his/her ranking.

So I rank IR-1 directly above Approval:

1. plain Condorcet
2. Smith//Condorcet
3. IR-1
4. Approval
5. Smith//Random

I'm not saying that there aren't other methods, maybe
including Bucklin, that I'd rank between Smith//Condorcet &
IR-1. But nothing _proposed here_ would go between Smith//Condorcet
& IR-1 in my ranking.

Why I'd probably rank Bucklin, if it were a proposal here, over
IR-1: Bucklin improves on Approval, and I feel that IR-1 gets
its merit from its kinship with Approval.

Actually, I'd be inclined to rank plain Condorcet & Smith//Condorcet
equally, to avoid the appearance of any dissention about Condorcet
versions, except that I feel that revealing that different
people prefer different versions for public proposal isn't
a bad thing. But I was tempted to rank them equal even though
I like the simplicity of plain Condorcet for public proposals.
I certainly agree that Smith//Condorcet has more technical merit,
and won't receive the kind of academic criticism that plain
Condorcet could receive. I guess if that criticism were in ernest,
then much wording would be needed to refute it, and the opponents
would be the ones with most of the media time, so that maybe
the criticisms of academic opponents would be heard, and our
rebuttals wouldn't be broadcast to as many people.  I don't
know; maybe if a plain Condorcet initiative were in a little
town, then the academics wouldn't get involved against it.
It's a difficult choice between more simplicity of definition,
at the cost of having to get the media time to refute more
criticisms, if the academics got involved.

About why electoral reform organization leaders oppose
IR-1, the whole-votes-for-equal-ranking version of IRO,
it seems, from what I've heard that they actually feel
that "1-person-1-vote" is violated, and that it's an
important principle being violated. They probably would
fear court or public opposition based on that objection,
but they also seem to actually consider it valid, even
though IR-1 doesn't violate any worthwhile principle that
IRO doesn't violate, and is better than IRO.

***

I'd like to add NOTB as a 6th choice, after Smith//Random.

***

Mentioning both IRO & IR-1 will be instructive to the IRO advocates
on ER, so that sounds fine to me.

***

Mike





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