[EM] Blake Cretney, are you a member of the Intelligentsiya??

[Blake Cretney]

Donald Davison wrote:

>     I disagree with you. In effect, what you are saying is: Because a
>majority of you voters will be making poor selections as your first
>choices, we have decided to let you try to do better on your lower
choices.
>In other words; do it over until you get it right, until you elect the
>CORRECT candidate.

Dear Donald Davison,

I don't accept that as a paraphrase of what I said.  Perhaps you view it
as a logical consequence, but I don't see how.  You don't give any
indication of the process whereby you derived your words from mine, and
I'm not going to guess, so I won't comment further on that point.

>     What you consider to be a poor candidate is someone else's number
one
>preferred choice. The beauty of a candidate is in the eye of the
beholder.
>
>     The first choices will rank the candidates highest down to lowest.
The
>lower choices will rank the candidates in reverse order. Anyone who
tries
>to mix the lower choices into some sort of weird mathematics is merely
>trying to help the lower ranked candidates, trying to use lower choices
to
>help defeat first choices.
>     We should design an election method to treat all voters and
factions
>with equality. We should not design an election system with the intent
to
>favor certain persons nor groups. Do not favor the highest nor the
lowest
>candidates. Do not favor the the largest nor the smallest party. Do
not
>favor the best candidates nor the worst candidates. Do not favor the
Right
>nor the Left nor the Center. Favoring is to be done by only the
voters.

I would agree with all these statements, but I don't see how any are
relevant.

>    The bottom line in winning an election is to get the votes.
Instant
>Runoff Voting treats all voters and candidates with equality. It is not
the
>fault of IRV that most candidates will not get enough votes.
>    Having a runoff is no problem, we are merely allowing the voters of
the
>lowest candidate to change their vote if they care to do so. While they
are
>not required to change, we would like them all to make a change,
because we
>want everyone to be part of the final decision between the last two
>candidates, that is why we have forced elimination of the lowest
candidate.
>    It will not be necessary for most of the voters to change their
vote,
>therefore it is best if most of the voters do not make any lower
choices.
>Otherwise, these lower choices of the major parties will be used by
the
>Intelligentsiya to argue that these voters really wanted to vote for
>someone else, not their first choice - a silly argument.

I don't think you've addressed the point of disagreement.  It's
unfortunate that you didn't choose to respond to any of the points
raised by my original email.  You didn't even supply the reference I
asked for.  If I judged solely by your response, I would guess that you
stopped reading my post pretty early on.

>    Are you a member of the Intelligentsiya??

I certainly would not claim to be a member of the "intelligentsiya".

---
Blake Cretney