[EM] More to Tom Mull, re: IRV

Sat Nov 2 20:31:21 PST 2002

Tom Mull--

You wrote:

I am aware that IRV is not without its flaws--the same with any
system.

I reply:

No, not at all. Not the same with any system. Some single-winner
voting systems are much worse than others. For instance, Plurality,
Borda, and IRV are right at the bottom. I'd rate Borda worst,
Plurality 2nd worst, and IRV 3rd worst, based on the main standards
that people express concern about. Actually, by Monotonicity,
Participation, Consistency, IIAC, and Summability, IRV is much
worse than Plurality. Many authors consider IRV, but not
Plurality, unacceptable, due to IRV's nonmonotonicity. IRV's lack
of summability will be a big problem in big elections. I now personally
rate IRV slightly over Plurality merely because it doesn't fail
UUCC as often as Plurality does, and it distinguishes itself from
Plurality by the Mutual Majority Criterion (MMC) and the
Independence from Clones Criterion (ICC), when those criteria are written  
in terms of sincere preferences and sincere voting, so that
Plurality will fail them in the way that we expect it to.

But Approval doesn't fail UUCC at all. And the examples in which
MMC & ICC could be used for IRV vs Approval are the very examples
in which IRV fails FBC and all the majority defensive criteria,
criteria that are more general in their situation coverage than MMC or ICC.

Besides, as I said, we had to stipulate sincere voting to make
Plurality fail MMC & ICC. The majority defensive criteria don't
require everyone to vote sincerely, and Plurality still fails.

>From what you said, you've been listening a lot to the IRV promoters.
One of the things that they always say is that, since no method
is perfect, that means that all methods are equally bad, and so,
for that reason, we might as well choose IRV.

No method is perfect. Some are much worse than others.

You continued:

I am interested in voting reform and in giving primary attention to
how we vote and organize our government. What is the one best way to elect
single and multiple positions may be moot

I reply:

Maybe, but, for a given standard or set of standards, some methods
are clearly mucy worse than others. The IRV-pushers have their own
standards, and their own hilariously unusual definition of majority
rule.

IRVists' standards sound suspiciously like the rules of IRV. I once
told IRV-hawker Jim Lindsay that when we rank candidates sincerely,
we mean that for any 2 candidates, we'd rather have the higher-ranked
one win, and we want that preference counted. Jim said that, no,
you don't want your 2nd choice to win instead of your last choice
if your 2nd choice is the favorite of fewest. No, I didn't make that
up. He made that claim.

You continued:

but I think we need to move from
plurality voting. We also need to give consideration to what is workable and
has some history of use to sell it to legislators and the voting public.

I reply:

Yes, the IRV-promoters say that too. IRV is workable with a counting
computer. Condorcet is workable with a counting computer. But IRV is
much more demanding of computer memory and counting time than Condorcet
or Approval. IRV's need to store and keep referring to all the rankings
makes it more susceptible to computer tampering. IRV is less workable
than Condorcet and Approval. If workability is important to you,
you don't want IRV.

...has some history? IRV has been used in Australia for maybe about
80 years, and Australia is still a 2-party system. When IRV was first
adopted there, it was hoped that it would encourage parties to begin
running more than 1 candiate per election, giving voters more
selection. That hasn't happened. Spoiler problem.

I haven't been to Australia, and so I haven't interviewed lots of
voters. But I've had the opportunity to ask 3 Australians about
favorite-burial strategy in Australia. All 3 of them told me that it's
common. One told me that she'd used that strategy in the most
recent election.

Yes, the IRV promoters always emphasize the importance of following
tradition, by using a method that's already been in use for a long
time. I remind them that following tradition isn't always the best
way to achieve progress. Just because little attention had been
paid to criteria and voting system merit in 1919, does that mean
that we should be stuck with a bad method because it was adopted during
that time when single-winner reformers didn't know what they were
doing?

Apparently you think that, because methods that haven't been in
public election use yet shouldn't be proposed, that means that
our single winner voting systems should always be limited to
Plurality, Runoff, and IRV.

If you want something easier to offer to the public, propose Approval.
By the standards that people express concern about, Approval is
better than IRV. And, while IRV is a completely new voting system,
using a completely new (to nearly everyone) balloting system that
needs new expensive equipment to implement it--Approval is nothing
other than Plurality with one small, but powerful, change that
should have been made a long time ago. Plurality done right.
No new balloting system. No new balloting equipment. No completely
new voting system to convince people on.

And, if you're going to try to promote IRV, you'd better do it
stealthily, because if someone who is genuinely concerned about
method-merit talks to the public, where you're proposing IRV,
about IRV and its problems that IRVists don't talk about, IRV won't
be adopted. IRV hasn't passed anywhere where non-IRVists have
shared information about it. It passed in San Francisco only because
none of us communicated with the public there about it.

You continued:

My
primary information, so far, comes from the books: "Real Choices/New Voices"
, "Behind the Ballot Box" by Douglas Amy and "Fixing Elections" by Steven
Hill. I have also logged on to the CVD and other web sites for info.

I reply:

That's why it's a good thing that you've joined this list. I recommend

http://www.electionmethods.org

and

http://www.barnsdle.demon.co.uk/vote/sing.html

You continued:

Again,
I am not so much the mathematical technical type, I am smart enough the get
the principal of the thing and go from there.

I reply:

But please don't get the principle of the thing from only one source.
Amy & Hill are CVD'ers. All the sources that you mentioned are CVD.

You continued:

The bottom line is what is
workable.

I reply:

In large elections, IRV is an implementation nightmare. Its
nonmonotonicity, and its failures of majority rule will discredit
it and whoever has promoted it.

Mike Ossipoff

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