[EM] 12/09/02 - Betrayal of the IRV voters by the Charlatans:

[Donald E Davison]

12/09/02 - Betrayal of the IRV voters by the Charlatans:

Greetings James Gilmour and list members,

James, you wrote: "No matter how many times ballot papers are recounted
under the IRV rules I have used for many years, you will always obtain the
same result.  So there should be nothing haphazard about it."

You are correct James, there is nothing haphazard about the IRV rules, but
what is haphazard about this debate you are having is that these supporters
of Condorcet and Approval insist on access to all the lower choices of an
IRV election so that they can construct a bogus argument that the IRV
method elected the wrong candidate.

These cult members want to be able to stand on their soap boxes and yell
that the wrong candidate has been elected.  As proof, they will present
their results from using one of their weird methods on the IRV ballots.
They plan to use the IRV ballots to prove that IRV is a defective method,
but in order to do that they need access to the ballots, that's why they
are opposed to the secrecy of the ballots.

One solution is for most of the voters not to make any lower choices.  If
an IRV election has two candidates that are head and shoulders ahead of the
rest of the pack, then the voters of those two candidates should not make
any lower choices.  Doing this will take the wind out of the Condorcet and
Approval methods, if and when the IRV ballots are misused by these
charlatans.  In order for these two weird methods to be operational, it is
necessary that the voters of the leading candidates betray themselves and
their first choice by making lower choices, but if these voters do not make
any lower choices, then there is no betrayal.

Lower choices in an IRV election are merely there in case a voter may wish
to change his vote, but in most cases the lower choices are not necessary
and should not be regarded as more information that the voter wants to be
used in the election.  These charlatans have no right to assume that lower
choices are held as high by the voters as the voters first choice.

James, you are debating with persons who have limited foresight.  They fail
to see that if and when one of their weird methods becomes legal in some
jurisdiction, that the method can be rended usless by the voters at the
ballot box - the charlatans are backing a sure loser.




Regards,
   Donald Davison, host of New Democracy at http://www.mich.com/~donald
                        Candidate Election Methods
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   |                        Q U O T A T I O N                          |
   |  "Democracy is a beautiful thing,                                 |
   |        except that part about letting just any old yokel vote."   |
   |                           - Age 10 -                              |
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