[EM] Yet another IRV problem

[Anthony Simmons]

>> From: Bart Ingles <bartman at netgate.net>
>> Subject: Re: [EM] Yet another IRV problem

>> Anthony Simmons wrote:
>> [....]
>> > >> In other words, a decisive plurality election could have
>> > >> been turned into a tie runoff.
>> >
>> > That I don't quite follow.  You couldn't mean that Bush and
>> > Gore could have tied, could you?


>> There were actually at least two issues:

>> (1) The spoiler effect, which was mostly of concern to
>> Gore voters this time around (actually of concern to
>> others as well, but it didn't cost anyone else the
>> election).  Although it's not clear how many votes
>> Buchanan and Browne drew away from Bush.  Nader himself
>> claims that for every 100 votes he received, if he had
>> dropped out 38 would have gone to Gore, 25 to Bush, and
>> the remaining voters would have stayed home.

>> (2) The closeness of the election, which may have actually
>> been of concern to more people than the spoiler effect.
>> Unfortunately, rather than giving a decisive win to Bush,
>> the spoiler effect this time caused a near tie, which IRV
>> (or any other method) could have avoided.  My point is
>> that across many elections, the reverse is every bit as
>> likely -- IRV could turn a decisive FPP election into an
>> IRV draw (I wonder what the recount controversy would be
>> like then?).

>> Since most of the press coverage focused on (2), that's
>> what I assumed you were talking about.

>> Actually, I think (1) received less coverage than either
>> the recount controversy OR the electoral college paradox.

Ah, I see.

I wasn't really talking about press coverage here, which was
pretty lame, and looked a lot to me like the sports section
of a TV news broadcast.  I was referring to what I've heard
from people who want to switch to IRV, since what I was
responding to was a comment about why people want to switch
to IRV.

For the most part, the people I've heard from are liberals
who are afraid they will be faced with hold-nose-vote-
democrat again.  I don't know if they are representative, but
from my own experience, conservatives have more often
defended existing institutions and are less eager for change.

But that is neither here nor there.  Certainly the closeness
of the election is a major problem, but no election method is
going to eliminate the likelihood of that.  Dealing with that
is in the province of implementations -- voting machines,
counting, that sort of thing -- that improve count accuracy.

To get back to the popularity of IRV, it looks like it's at
least partly because IRV would have eliminated what happened
at the last election, when Nader voters influenced the
outcome in favor of Bush.  You're right -- it could just as
easily cause another close election as prevent one, but (1)
that's not what people saw because it's not what happened,
and what they see counts a lot more than what could happen
next time, and (2) nobody notices when there isn't a problem.

(2) was just highlighted today, on a list where people are
discussing the benefits and risks of vaccination.  One person
thinks that vaccination may not be worth the risk, because it
can cause illness and have serious side effects.  What this
particular person does not see is diptheria epidemics, people
keeping their children indoors during polio season, not to
mention smallpox.  Those things are hard to see because they
don't exist.

So, this time around, what everyone saw was a spoiler and a
close election that could have been prevented by IRV.
Remember, they don't have a clue what the alternatives are.
It's all a big mystery to most people.  They hear about IRV,
they are told that it prevents the spoiler problem, and
that's what their decision is based on.

>> Bart