What are we all about?

[James Gilmour]

Josh wrote:
>
> misinformation.
>
> and it isn't as wrong as you would have us believe.
>
> two stages elections where certain candidates are eliminated after the first
> round based on the first round results are, in some important ways,
> identical to multiple stage elections like IRV or STV.
>

But in some even more important ways they are so different as to make any comparison completely meaningless and therefore totally
irrelevant.


> ok, maybe not similar enough for rigorous analysis.
>

I think you have conceded the point, but I suspect you won't agree.


> but it was a problem of ideological similarity splitting the majority
>

This is not the problem.  This a common feature of real politics.  The voting system should not artificially constrain real
diversity of opinion.

The problem was one of a defective voting system denying any mechanism to allow a majority to re-group progressively from its
initial split position.  This can be done by exhaustive ballot (very expensive), IRV or Condorcet, and no doubt by some other
systems as well.


References to France in this context are at best irrelevant and at worst deliberately misleading.

James Gilmour


> -----Original Message-----
> From: James Gilmour [mailto:jgilmour at globalnet.co.uk]
> Sent: Thursday, July 25, 2002 5:37 PM
> To: election-methods-list at eskimo.com
> Subject: RE: What are we all about?
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Narins, Josh [mailto:josh.narins at lehman.com]
> > Sent: 25 July 2002 15:33
> > To: 'election-methods-list at eskimo.com'
> > Subject: RE: What are we all about?
> >
> >> Someone wrote:
> > > Hare/IRV tends to become erratic with more than seven
> > > or so candidates in the race, particularly when
> > > some of the candidates are ideologically similar.
>
>
> Josh wrote:
> > SEE: France
> >
>
> I don't know whether this is mis-information or dis-information.
> Either way, it is wrong and completely irrelevant.
>
> The "problem" with the French Presidential election system is that the votes
> are not transferable.
> Had the highly fractured Left been able to re-group around a preferred
> candidate, there never would have been a news story.
>
> It is a common mistake to think that France uses some system like IRV.  They
> don't even use the Exhaustive Ballot properly as they
> allow only the top two candidates from round one to go into round two.  With
> the consequences we have all seen.
>
> James Gilmour

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