[EM] Might IRV adoption be inevitable?

[James Gilmour]

> > Venzke Kevin wrote (25 Feb 2003):
> > I wonder if the only reason IRV has more apparent
> > backing than approval or Condorcet is because it would
> > permit our present politicians to be elected even more
> > easily.

Markus replied:
> I guess that the main reason why so many people support IRV
> is that these people consider IRV to be the first step to
> proportional representation by the single transferable vote.

I don't think there any necessary connection between promoting IRV and promoting
PR by STV.  It may be different elsewhere, but here in the UK the objectives the
promoters of IRV and of STV-PR are certainly very different.

Our main electoral reform campaigns are about PR - making local councils,
Assemblies and Parliaments more properly representative of those who voted.  In
the UK context, STV-PR is the most appropriate system to achieve that.  (I know we
have introduced MMP=AMS and Closed Party Lists, but that was to allow the
government party - Labour - to keep control of its own candidates and elected
members.)

Most who argue for IRV in public elections here, do so as a means of preventing
any move towards PR.  They want to retain the single-member districts at all
costs.  They have different reasons for this.  I think a few may genuinely believe
in the alleged "special merits" of representation from single-member districts,
despite all the evidence to the contrary.  In most cases, it is probably just a
cynical attempt to retain power for the IRV advocate's political party when the
voting stats show that with any reasonable system of PR, their party would be out
of power or in a minority or coalition administration.  Some party apparatchiks
don't want STV-PR in particular because it would shift the balance of control away
from the political party machine and give more power to the voters - and they
don't want that!

We have very few directly elected single-office public elections in the UK.
However, when advocates of STV-PR are asked about such elections, they usually
recommend IRV (despite all its defects).

James



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