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

No, Dave, I meant EXACTLY what I said.  Both Run-off restricted to two rounds with
only the top two in round two, and the UK's Supplementary Vote, are highly
defective.

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

Au contraire - this is extremely significant.  There is a world of difference
between successive run-offs (Exhaustive Ballot) and a two-round run-off with only
the top two from round one allowed to contest round two.


> 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.

Yes, but that's not all.  In our version of the Supplementary Vote you have only
two preferences ("X" in column one, "X" in column two), but it only the
preferences for the top two candidates that are counted.  In this respect, it is
even worse than the French two-round run-off.  At least in the French system you
know who the top two are when you cast you second vote.

>
> >
> > 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:

I accept that, theoretically, IRV could fail like the French run-off, especially
if very few voters marked second preferences.  But I said IRV would not fail as
you suggested, because I am interested in practical politics and what real voters
will do in real elections.  I believe there is enough evidence of the behaviour of
French voters for me to completely confident that what you suggested would never
happen in an IRV election.

Presented with 16 candidates from four main groups across the political spectrum
and the possibility of voting preferentially and of having those votes transferred
to successive preferences if required, I am sure the French electors would use IRV
to the full.  Then you would have seen progressive consolidation on the
centre-right and on the centre-left, with the outcome of a Chirac-Jospin contest
as I suggested.

James

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