[EM] The Allure of IRV

[Joe Weinstein]

Alex writes, "Once you support ranking, unless you've heard of
Condorcet the runoff idea makes intuitive sense, since plenty of places in 
the US use 2-stage runoff..".

All sorts of unnecessary complications can make 'intuitive sense'.  All one 
needs is a mental commitment to be (gratuitously) complex and arcane.  
That's what IRV is all about.  There's no answering people, however 
allegedly 'intelligent', who are committed to gratuitous complexity and are 
unwilling to ponder counterarguments.

Just remember that (for those of us with simpler intuitions) NOTHING 
actually requires runoff.  The French could have quit at the primary stage.  
Runoff - as right now in France - is just a attempt to manufacture a 
'majority' when in fact none need exist.

Far better than IRV, if you really want a true majority, or something close 
to it, the Approval winner is as close as you will get.  If you want, insist 
(a la Demorep) that the Approval winner actually command at least 50%, else 
choice devolves to a legislature.  Or, even better, first hold a 'runoff' 
which is just a re-run, in order to give the electorate a second chance to 
get a 50% Approval Winner.

Actually, if you insist on being able to use three or more ranks, being able 
to independently grade the different candidates makes even MORE sense: it's 
more flexible and expressive.  In other words, you get Cardinal Ratings 
(CR).

[To be sure, with instrumental-only strategy, CR amounts to Approval.
In favor of CR, I have argued that people have reasons of expressivity to 
use CR to vote intermediate grades.  Moreover - if a public is ready to put 
up with the clerical problems just of ranking - it would be little or no 
extra trouble, and fewer invalidated ballots, to allow X-slot grading. Here, 
integer X could be as large as 11, for the case of ratings ranging from 0 
through 10.  But the best combination of CR-type expressivity and Approval 
simplicity would be X-slot Approval.]

The basic argument that IRVites are making to the small part of the public 
that is listening at all amounts to the Big Lie:  'IRV is the only available 
alternative to the status quo.'

I go with Mike's proposed rejoinder, and I continue to suggest the following 
message to those who want to join IRV campaigns:

Campaigning for IRV when Approval is available is like campaigning for 
replacing tally marks by Roman numerals, when Hindu-Arabic decimals are 
available.

Joe Weinstein
Long Beach CA USA


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