Giving crutches to weak candidates

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

I reply to Donald once in a while, but I urge new list members to
check the archives for earlier replies to Donald's continually repeated
fallacies.

Donald said:

Donald: Non-monotonicity is a bad joke, it does not exist, it has never
happened in a real election, it only happens in extreme examples concocted
by the Charlatans.

I reply:

Where IRV is used in public elections, the records that are kept
aren't sufficient to show that monotonic situations do or don't
occur. But they must occur once in a while.


Irving has been in use for over eighty years in real election in the real
world and not once has there been an election in which one of the
Charlatans' extreme examples occured.

I reply:

Donald can't truthfully say that, because, as I said, the recorded
information is not available to make that determination.

Donald continued:

A few months ago I posted some real ballots to this list and requested
anyone to use the ballots and prove that Irving or STV can be
non-monotonicity in the real world. No one responded.

I reply:

I didn't notice them, but if you'll repost them, then eventually, even
if not right away, someone will probably examine them for IRV
problems.

Don continued:

Most voters do not need to make lower choices.

I reply:

Actually, they do, unless one candidate has a 1st choice majority.
They do it all the time in our Plurality elections. It's called
strategic or pragmatic voting, and it's commonplace. With Approval
those same people could so so without abandoning their favorite.

We've heard this objection hundreds of times, mostly repeated by
Donald. Sure, Approval isn't Condorcet(wv), and can't have all
the criterion compliances and strategy freedoms of Condorcet(wv).
No one's disagreeing with you on that, Don. But Approval is easier
to define, explain, and propose than Condorcet or IRV. Compare Approval
to what we have now, Plurality, rather than to Condorcet(wv).


...but in Condorcet and Approval elections, these lower choices will be
`pity votes'. The voters need to learn not to make `pity votes'. It is
best to use an election method in which `pity votes' will have little
effect.

I reply:

Sorry Don, but it isn't for you to decide what votes should have
effect. Nader preferrers didn't vote for Gore out of pity. They
voted for him because they felt that they needed to vote for him to
keep someone worse from winning.

IRV lets you express all your preferences--and then may or may not
count them. At least Approval reliably counts all the preferences that
you consider important enough to be the ones that you vote, though
you can't vote them all. In Approval you decide which of your preferences 
will be counted. In IRV, IRV decides it for you, idiosyncratically. 
Idiosyncratically, because IRV makes irrevocable
decisions based on a fraction of the available information.  That
would never be excused if it were done by someone in charge of an
imporatant project.

Don continues:

Any success that weak candidates may hope to have over strong candidates
will depend on `pity votes' received by the weak candidates. The
Charlatans know that if voters are given more votes then some voters will
foolishly make the mistake of handing out `pity votes' and maybe these
`pity votes' will make the difference in winning an election for the
Charlatans' weak candidate.

I reply:

Don is apparently afraid that those who actually prefer Gore to
Nader (but does anyone?) will vote for Nader out of pity. "He isn't
a compromise to protect us from the Republican, but, hey, let's
help the poor guy out." :-)   People who prefer a the Democrat or
the Republican aren't going to vote for anyone else, if it looks
as if the contest is most likely between the Dem & the Repub.

According to Don, that's our plot, to give the Democrats more votes
so that they'll vote for people whom they don't like as much, and
whom they don't strategically need. Don't worry Don, it won't happen.

Donald continues:

It is proper for a jurisdiction to select a
method that will protect votes from themselves, from their own `pity
votes'.

I reply:

Wrong. It's proper for a voting system to reliably count the preferences 
that people vote--and that's something that IRV doesn't do.

Mike Ossipoff




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