[EM] STV bad example

[Forest Simmons]

Thanks to Demorep for passing this IRV example along to us. Note that IRV
is just the single winner case of STV. 

This example is significant because IRV folks are always telling us that
if our favorite gets eliminated, then our vote goes to our second choice.
But in this example, everybody's second choice is eliminated in the first
round, so nobody's vote transfers to his second choice, even though that
candidate is preferred by a majority over any other candidate.

Forest

On Tue, 6 Nov 2001 DEMOREP1 at aol.com wrote:

> The below is from another email list regarding election stuff.
> 
> ----
> 
> The [use of] STV [in a single member district] may serve to eliminate the 
> preferred candidate who may be no one's first choice yet everyone's second 
> choice.
> 
> Example: Let us assume an election where 100 voters must elect one of four 
> candidates A, B, C and D. The electors may vote according to 24 patterns. For 
> simplicity's sake, let us assume that they vote according to three patterns 
> only and that candidate B is second in all three patterns (3rd and 4th ranks 
> are immaterial but let us assume that they divide the votes.)
> 
> The patterns are ABXX, CBXX, DBXX.
> 
> Let us now assume the following results:
> 
> ABXX = 40
> CBXX = 36
> DBXX = 24
> total  = 100
> 
> An analysis of the results will reveal that B is preferred to A by 60 votes, 
> to C by 64 votes and to D by 76 votes. While B is preferred to all other 
> candidates, with STV, candidate B would have been eliminated.
> 
>