[EM] Condorcet at the Instantrunoff Mailing List

[Markus Schulze]

Dear participants,

this is a part of a discussion of Condorcet methods
at the instantrunoff mailing list.

Jameson Quinn wrote (10 Nov 2000):
> I wrote a letter to the list about a week ago comparing
> Condorcet and IRV. It turns out that in IRV there are still
> common cases where you have to choose between voting your
> fears or your conscience, and Condorcet fixes that. Moreover,
> Condorcet is easier to count (3), protects better against
> fraud, and is no harder to explain. The basic arguments can be
> seen at www.electionmethods.org. My message has not yet shown
> on the list. _If_ the moderator of this list is actually
> supressing discussion of this important issue, something is
> very wrong. IRV is way better than what we have; but if we IRV
> activists can't spend the time to understand the issues and
> admit that Condorcet is even better, how do we expect the rest
> of the country to consider IRV?
>
> (1) Primaries have more candidates, and so bigger plurality
> problems. Bradley and McCain would have done better in IRV
> primaries, and we might not have been stuck with these palookas.
>
> (2) This has actually been proven mathematically:
>
> (3) Counting Condorcet is easier in large elections; IRV is
> easier in small elections. Condorcet has more steps, but they
> can be done in parallel at the precinct level; IRV has fewer
> steps, but they must be done all at one time in one place.

Dan Johnson-Weinberger, the list administrator, replied
(14 Nov 2000):
> This list is designed to facilitate organizing for the instant
> runoff. We are not discussing other electoral reforms, like
> Condorcet voting or Borda or approval or some other system.
> We are not theorizing about the best electoral system. We are
> not discussing the relative merits of the Electoral College.
> What we are doing is WORKING on implementing the instant
> runoff. And we are sharing our thoughts, our observations
> and our strategies for success.
>
> To keep the list high-quality, we don't send out every single
> message that is submitted. We only want to send out three
> messages a day (so we don't lose any subscribers), and
> so we're editing out some messages that don't seem to be
> directly on-point. Messages about Condorcet are not on-point.

Markus Schulze