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

[Dave Ketchum]

On Sat, 14 Dec 2002 18:38:29 -0000 James Gilmour wrote:

> 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.

BTW - assume you meant "effective" rather than "defective" above.


Ok, I could have said more clearly, "Separate runoffs, by the method the 
French were using,".  Do not see that as especially significant.

If I remember "UK's Supplementary Vote" correctly from a previous post, 
that is IRV with the voter restricted to voting for 2 candidates.  If so, 
I would see it as sharing IRV's problems, perhaps extended a bit by the 
difference.

> 
> 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
> 
I stand by what I said about IRV - that it could fail with a French collection of 

voters and candidates, not that it would surely fail.  Not clear why French voters 
could be expected to "have marked several or many preferences", but I am only 
dealing with possibilities here.  Try a sample election:


20 Le Pen
20 Chirac
14 M1, Jospin
13 M2, Jospin
12 M3, Jospin
11 Jospin
10 Remaining 10 candidates as first choice.  Care not how they share such, 
or what their lower choices are, so long as each round leaves Le Pen and 
Chirac sharing top two positions and the Jospin-as-first-choice votes 
staying in 6th place.


IRV:  Given these votes, Jospin will be at the bottom and lose on or 
before the 11th round - thus being out of the race.  M1, M2, and M3 
follow, meaning either Le Pen or Chirac win.

Condorcet:  50 votes are visible for Jospin, more than any other candidate 
can get together, whatever may be in the 10 strays.
-- 
  davek at clarityconnect.com    http://www.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek
   Dave Ketchum    108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY  13827-1708    607-687-5026
              Do to no one what you would not want done to you.
                    If you want peace, work for justice.

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