Santa Clara & Candidate Withdrawal Option

[Mike Ositoff]

As I understand it, the Santa Clara initiative was a CVD
operation, and both CVD members that I've discussed candidate-
withdrawal with (one of them was the "Executive Director")
rejected candidate-withdrawal.

I agree that IRO would be ok if it allowed candidate-withdrawal.
But the IRO advocates, including CVD, seem to be determined to
impose IRO's problem on the electorate, since they've refused
both of the mitigations that have been proposed to them:
Candidate withdrawal, and IRO with the option to vote
more than 1 candidate in 1st place (or, more generally, at
any rank position). That "Approval IRO compromise would
have the rule: "Repeatedly eliminate froml the rankings the
candidate occupying or sharing highest position in fewest
rankings".

I emphasize that IRO (or any method) with candidate withdrawal
would be better than Approval IRO. My point is that IRO
advocates refuse any kind of mitigation of their method's
problem.

Mike