[EM] 05/20/02 - True Majority Winner or Candidate:

[Michael Rouse]

From: "Donald Davison" <donald at mich.com>
To: "[EM]" <election-methods-list at eskimo.com>
Cc: <hager2002 at hager2002.org>
Sent: Monday, May 20, 2002 6:08 AM
Subject: [EM] 05/20/02 - True Majority Winner or Candidate:


> 05/20/02 - True Majority Winner or Candidate:
>
> Greetings list members,
>
> Richard Squabble Moore and Michael Rouse are pretending that the term
`True
> Majority Winner or Candidate' has not appeared on this list.  The poor
boys
> are in denial, they don't remember nor can find what they don't want to
> remember nor find.
>    What makes them think that some of the rest of us will not remember nor
> be able to find text bearing the term `True Majority Winner or Candidate'.

Let's take a stroll down memory lane:

From: "Donald Davison" <donald at mich.com>
"There is a code word term that includes the words `majority and winner'.

"The term `true majority winner' are code words meaning that Approval Voting
is to be the standard to examine an election method and that the Approval
winner would be the `true majority winner' regardless of the fact that it
is mathematically impossible for any candidate to have a majority of the
votes when the voters cast two or more votes each.
   " A majority of the voters is not a majority of the votes.  The code
words `true majority winner' really means `bogus majority winner'."

Hmm, nothing about restricting the discussion to Paul Hager's Approval
posts, or even the election-methods list. On the other hand, you *are*
specifically stating that "true majority winner" means "bogus majority
winner," and are implying the term is only used by proponents of Approval
voting in order to claim their method as the one true standard voting
method. Here are some "bogus majority winners" on the IRVing side:

"IRV also removes any uncertainty about whether a candidate is a *true
majority winner.*" http://www.fairvote.org/op_eds/oped_991001.htm
"Did Christie Whitman Really Win? IRV Knows" "...With New Jersey's plurality
voting system, we will never know if Whitman was the *true majority winner*
or merely lucky that a minor party candidate split votes away from
McGreevey." http://www.fairvote.org/op_eds/oped_971105b.htm
"Only the Instant Runoff gets a *true majority winner*, and if we're stuck
with an outdated less-than-majority system in November for American
elections, we'd better have majority rule on Survivor!"
http://www.survivor.fairvote.net/survivor.htm
"In the end, the IRO almost always will reveal a *true majority winner* at
an election where voter turnout is maximized." (IRO=Instant Run Off)
http://www.nucleus.com/~rjmedia/democracyarticles.html
"Q. But is the IRV winner a *true majority winner*, or does it sort of
manufacture a majority out of thin air?" (Long-winded answer in the
affirmative, when it should have been "It depends.")
http://www.fairvotevermont.org/faq.html
"The fairest way to produce a *true majority winner* is to drop only the
candidate with the fewest number of votes and have a runoff between the
remaining candidates. If no candidate receives a majority in this runoff,
again the lowest candidate would be dropped and another runoff held. This
would continue until one candidate obtains a majority." (What could this be
a description of?) www.lafn.org/politics/lwvp/pr.html
"Bottom candidates are dropped out one at a time until a *true majority
winner* emerges." (Plus a bunch more on IRV)
http://www.bostonvote.org/downloads/bostonreport.pdf
"If an IRV system was in place for the recent presidential election in
Florida, the voters who supported Ralph Nader or Pat Buchanan could have
designated George Bush or Al Gore as their second choice. The *true majority
winner* would have been known quickly and efficiently with none of the
delays and chaos that took place."
http://www.vpirg.org/campaigns/financeReform/irvmain.html

And of course, by far the most interesting use of "true majority winner" (in
that the person who claimed it as a code phrase actually used it on a
website):
"The Basic Election Rule will allow us to drop a string of candidates if the
sum of the votes of the dropped candidates is less than the votes of the one
candidate ahead of the string.... This rule will reveal the *true majority
winner* when the majority is not clear." (Asterisks mine)
http://www.mich.com/~donald/single.html (Note that although this page was
entitled "Choice Run-Off AKA Instant Run-Off, it is possible he was
referring to a non-standard "Basic Election Rule" rather than pure IRV.)

So here's my question to Donald Davison: does the statement "The code words
`true majority winner' really means `bogus majority winner'" apply to
everyone, or only proponents of other voting methods?

Michael Rouse
mrouse at cdsnet.net

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