[EM] Unranked IRV versus Approval - divergent winners exist!

[Tom Ruen]

> Tom Ruen wrote:
>
> > About the instability of elimination among 3 strong candidates, in
ranked or
> > unranked IRV, I'm still not overly afraid. Small spoilers are the more
> > common enemy.
>
From: "Martin Harper" <mcnh2 at cam.ac.uk>
> Well, they are at the moment, cause Plurality kills off small spoilers
before
> they have a chance to grow into large spoilers. Plurality lets third
parties
> become just powerful enough to result in people being elected when a
majority
> would prefer their opponent. Is there any reason to suppose that IRV
wouldn't do
> the same?

I'm going to get into trouble here I see, but here goes...

Plurality among 3 is like a game of chicken between toy cars and real cars,
except the toy cars can afford to crash while the big ones often manage to
get wrecked too!

Runoffs (instant or not) take away that game until the toy candidates grow
into viable options. Then the game of chicken returns and everyone has a
chance to vote as they like, whether compromising or not, and finally get
the strongest of the biggest two coalitions. It is a power game and king of
the hill wins. Many people into politics love the top-runoff game, the
excitement!

Plurality and runoffs both support 2 dominant parties. It becomes a game of
compromise, each party absorbing as many issues as it can so long as the
this attracts more voters than it repels. The two party system is also a
fight for good candidates. A party must be able to attract good candidates
as well as voters to survive.

Third parties come in two varieties to be blunt - centrists and extremists.
A centrist will try to win on claiming both major parties are extreme (or
out of touch or whatever) - Jesse Ventura won on this ticket. An extremist
really can't plan on winning, but they will claim opinion is shifting in
their direction. Take Nader and Buchanan as examples. They can pull voters
from a major party that has compromised too much and if there is enough
support this direction, the major party must reform to regain their
supporters. I imagine this process like amebas fighting for territory -
which direction has more food?!

Of course throughout this push-pull of power and opinion, the popular
centrist position can move around over the years.

We can say that better methods exist than runoffs, but I'm not prepared to
say that runoff really produce bad winners. Runoffs produce winners through
coalition power, and coalitions are made from people who care to participate
in the process more. Coalitions thrive by compromising before an election,
at least if they want to win. We need both those that compromise and those
that stand tall, among voters and candidates.

Well, that's my defense of single-vote runoffs. I don't see reform any time
soon over this long history of runoffs.

Big third parties may sometimes still lose under IRV because of fear causes
some to compromise to the more centrist candidate, and major parties will
still lose from strong extremist 3rd parties who won't compromise, but I
think losing a close 3-way election is not a very sad thing in the bigger
picture and the process strengthens all the parties as they strive to stand
for things and be inclusive enough to win.

Tom Ruen

----- Original Message -----
From: "Martin Harper" <mcnh2 at cam.ac.uk>
To: <election-methods-list at eskimo.com>
Sent: Sunday, April 01, 2001 5:11 PM
Subject: Re: [EM] Unranked IRV versus Approval - divergent winners exist!


> Tom Ruen wrote:
>
> > About the instability of elimination among 3 strong candidates, in
ranked or
> > unranked IRV, I'm still not overly afraid. Small spoilers are the more
> > common enemy.
>
> Well, they are at the moment, cause Plurality kills off small spoilers
before
> they have a chance to grow into large spoilers. Plurality lets third
parties
> become just powerful enough to result in people being elected when a
majority
> would prefer their opponent. Is there any reason to suppose that IRV
wouldn't do
> the same?