[EM] Guarding the Instant Runoff movement (Our Mike is mentio ned)

[LAYTON Craig]

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 12/10/00
Greetings List,
      In this drive for Instant Runoff Voting(IRV), you should be aware
that there are about twenty or thirty other methods, the so called
alternative methods. Every once in awhile a member of the IRV movement will
think: "I really do want to be promoting the best system." (we all do)
      Then they may even want us to stop and discuss the other methods.
Jameson Quinn is one of these persons (he wants to discuss).  Discussions
of the other methods are endless discussions - discussions adinfinitum.
      While we should avoid the endless discussions, of more importance, we
all should know that most of these other methods have a core flaw.
      What follows are my comments, which I hope will make Jameson and you
beware the endless discussions and aware of this core flaw, so you both
will understand and be prepared to guard our movement.

Regards, Donald Davison

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 11/29/00

Okay, this is getting a little juvenile.  I won't speculate how many
offensive people post on this list, but I'm replying to at least one of
them.

I won't bother extrapolating on how hypocritical it is to focus on the
importance of "top choices" and then advocate a method which allows bottom
preferences to decide the result of the election (believe me, it happens
often).  One wonders why you are advocating an alternative to plurality at
all.

There happens to be a range of opinions on this list, and some are more
partial to particular methods than others.  I know that I'm not the only one
who doesn't prefer Approval to IRV, for instance (that's not to say that I
prefer IRV over approval, however).  If you were paying attention, you may
even have seen me suggest a minimum quota to make first preferences more
important in Condorcet.

I'm relatively new to this mailing list (a few months), and it strikes me as
rather disturbing that a carbon copy of me, living in the US and joining the
CVD list, in order to understand the options for electoral reform, and
intelligently discuss the advantages of alternative voting systems, would
perhaps never have stumbled across any methods other than IRV, plurality and
maybe cumulative voting (which apparently is better for minorities!? - but
then, you don't strike me as the kind of person who would care much about
minorities).

I suppose, if the list is for IRV advocates, then you can impose any kind of
censorship you like in order to keep it that way.  This list is to discuss
the merits of various voting systems.  IRV is not without merit, but it does
have many drawbacks.  There does seem to be some kind of hierarchy going on
in your organisation that is closer to a medieval synod than a modern forum
of discussion (this is the doctrine, we will not discuss alternatives, we
will only discuss how to spread that doctrine).

Craig Layton