[EM] Reply to Rob L., re: IRV

[Forest Simmons]

On Tue, 12 Mar 2002, Rob Lanphier wrote:

<snip>

> 1.  We don't alienate those who should be our allies
> 2.  We don't panic....argue against IRV solely on merits (or lack thereof)
> 3.  We can live with the compromise we propose (Approval)
>
> It's this last point I'm not yet sure of, but I do plan to read further to
> become convinced one way or another.

Remember, Approval was the clear winner of last summer's contest for Best
Public Proposal on the EM list :-)

Now, about the transition from IRV to Condorcet versus transition from
Approval to Condorcet:

In my opinion, whatever (increased expressivity) improvement we may
consider over Approval (whether a Condorcet method or some other method)
should be adapted to some kind of CR ballot, preferrably Five Slot Grade
Ballots. [If more resolution is truly essential for the method, then plus
or minus options would bring up the resolution to 15.]

IRV wouldn't be much (if any) better preparation for this transition than
Approval.

Another thought about transitions: if some elections were done by, say,
Proxy ACMA, the voters could learn the ins and outs of ACMA by watching
their proxies.  After a while they might want to fill out ACMA ballots
themselves, rather than just stand by and watch their proxies have all of
the fun.

[After the transition each ballot could have a proxie check box for those
that continued to prefer letting their favorite act as their proxie.]

Of course, the same goes for any other method more complicated than
Approval that we might want to propose, eventually. [I assume that we
don't need to do this for Approval itself.]

Forest