[EM] To Bill Lewis Clark re: stepping-stone

[Forest Simmons]

On Mon, 26 Jan 2004, Eric Gorr wrote:

> At 7:54 PM -0500 1/24/04, Adam H Tarr wrote:
> >Eric wrote:
> >
> >>At 7:17 PM -0500 1/24/04, Bill Lewis Clark wrote:
> >>
> >>>   It's nowhere near as good as Condorcet
> >>>(IMHO) but it's not "change for the sake of change."
> >>
> >>Apparently, it is.
> >
> >My position on IRV's advantages over plurality is this:
> >
> >AS LONG AS you have two major factions that have comfortably more than two
> >thirds of the first-place preference between them, IRV does a good job of
> >preventing minor party candidates from "interfering" in the two party system.
> >In this respect, it manages to solve the "spoiler" problem in its
> >most commonly described form (i.e. the extremist party leeching
> >votes from one of the major parties).
>
> Personally, I would not consider that to be an advantage of IRV over
> Plurality, but, at best, an issue on which IRV merely breaks even
> with Plurality. For being a spoiler is sometimes the only way to get
> the 'big guys' to listen to a legitimate issue or grievance.
>
Note that Candidate Proxy enhances this leverage feature, and does it for
free.

> Furthermore, an extremist party may not be extremist at all, but the
> most preferred party by the voters with the 'big guys' best viewed as
> the true extremists.

Amen!  The devil is laughing because he has the extreme war mongering,
fascist, anti-democratic parties entrenched in power against the better
judgment of the people, because they think they have to vote for one of
the devil's candidates on the basis of window dressing and horse race
election coverage.

Forest

>
> ----
> Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
>