[EM] IRV inconsistency

[Richard Moore]

Markus Schulze wrote:

> Richard Moore wrote (14 May 2001):
> > Another consequence of the summability failure is that reporting IRV
> > results will be very complicated. At least for Condorcet you could
> > publish the overall pairwise matrix (and also the pairwise matrices for
> > individual counties or precincts or whatever the desired resolution is).
>
> I guess that IRV supporters will say that --for a voter to see what his
> vote did-- it is sufficient to publish the votes of each IRV step.
>
> Markus Schulze

It may be sufficient for some, but I would think at least a few voters would
demand more complete information about an election that will determine
many aspects of their lives for the next several years. Exactly where do the
numbers come from in each step? If there were 100000 A votes in the first
round, and A got eliminated, how many were ABC votes and how many
were ACB votes? This can be determined by the difference between first
and second round votes for B and C. But how many of the B votes were
BAC votes and how many of the C votes were CAB votes? If this
information were published, it might reveal how undemocratic the result is.
It might show that A is more popular than the winner. Of course, we
wouldn't want anybody to find out IRV's dirty little secret, would we?

Richard