[EM] IRV inconsistency

[Forest Simmons]

On Tue, 15 May 2001, Richard Moore wrote:

> 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
> 
> 

So when IRV trashes information it trashes it for good. Not even the
Coroner can find it out during autopsy. "Ignorance is Bliss."

Forest