[EM] 12/13/02 - Giving `crutches to weak candidates':

[James Gilmour]

Dave wrote, in part:
> Like IRV, separate runoffs have been around a long time.  Separate runoffs
> almost frustrated French voters into riots this year and, given a similar
> set of candidates and voters, IRV could easily have stumbled into the same
> result.
>

I must correct two wrong statements here before they are repeated yet again.

The only reason there were problems with the run-offs in the French Presidential
election this year is that only the top two candidates are allowed to stand in the
run-off.  If a proper process of successive elimination had been used (the
"Exhaustive Ballot"), there would have been none of the problems we saw.
Restricted run-off, like the UK's Supplementary Vote, is a highly defective voting
system.

This could not happen with IRV because there is no restriction on the number of
preferences a voter can mark and all the preferences are transferable.  Given the
pattern of voting in the first round of the French Presidential, most voters would
have marked several or many preferences (there were 16 candidates representing
four main political groupings of parties).  Successive elimination of candidates
among parties of the left and among parties of the right, would  almost certainly
have resulted in the final stage of the count being a contest between Chirac and
Jospin.  That would have been in accord with the wishes of at least two-thirds of
the voters.

James

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