[EM] Draft of CVD analysis about IRV vs. Condorcet Voting

[James Green-Armytage]

to Ralph Suter,

	I liked this letter a lot. I especially liked the part where you took
issue with Amy's treatment of Condorcet! I read that book too, and the
part on Condorcet which you cited really bothered me. And the Lijphart
quote, wow! I also agree that the 'punishing candidates who take clear
stances on issues' part of the draft, which was the central argument, is
poorly supported. I also agree that IRV retains many of the polarizing
tendencies of plurality, and this is bad news.

my best,
James

RLSuter at aol.com writes:
>I'm posting this to the Election Methods list and BCC'ing it to Rob
>Richie 
>and Terry Bouricus of CVD. I hope they will take a look at the other 
>commentaries about the CVD draft on the EM list 
>(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/) that are likely to
>be posted in the next few days.
>
>In a message dated 4/2/04 3:02:14 PM Central Standard Time, 
>election-methods-list at yahoogroups.com writes:
>
><<  Just became aware of this:
> 
> Draft of CVD analysis about IRV vs. Condorcet Voting
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/instantrunoff/message/1548
> (The message archives are open to everyone) >>
>
>
>My response to the draft:
>
>This subject needs honest, well-informed, fair-minded arguments, not
>legal 
>brief-type arguments that misrepresent opponents and overstate the
>positives of 
>one's own opinions. The CVD draft, unfortunately, is more like a legal
>brief.
>
>The first misrepresentation is the draft's description of Condorcet
>voting as 
>"a ranked-choice system favored by some mathematicians." The truth is
>that 
>Condorcet voting is favored not only by "some mathematicians" but by a
>large 
>number of very well-informed and sophisticated political scientists and 
>economists and if anything has gained increased favor among voting
>experts in recent 
>years. A much better description is the following one in the Encyclopedia
>of 
>Democracy (1995) by Arend Lijphart, a former president of the American
>Political 
>Science Association and, ironically, a member of CVD's advisory board:
>
>  There is such strong and widespread agreement among
>  experts that the Condorcet method is the most accurate
>  and fairest majoritarian formula that it has become the
>  yardstick against which other formulas are measured.
>
>The draft's misrepresentation of Condorcet is similar to a
>misrepresentation 
>made by one of CVD's chief theoreticians, Douglas Amy, in his book
>"Behind the 
>Ballot Box" (2000). In his brief description of Condorcet voting (p.
>187), 
>Amy states:
>
>  There is a long history of scientists and mathematicians
>  who dabbled in election theory and invented voting systems.
>  They include Jean-Charles de Borda, the Marquis de
>  Condorcet, and C. L. Dodgson -- better known as Lewis
>  Carroll, the author of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."
>
>Amy thus begins his analysis of Condorcet voting by describing its
>author, 
>who took his politics so seriously that he lost his life in the French 
>revolution (and was one of the earliest advocates of gender equality) and
>whose 
>influence among modern day political scientists is far greater than Amy's
>ever has 
>been or ever will be, as a "dabbler."
>
>Other people on this list are much more qualified to comment on the rest
>of 
>the draft than I am, but what bothers me most about it is it's emphasis
>on the 
>possibility that mediocre candidates who refuse to express strong views
>will 
>have an advantage over other candidates and that Condorcet "punishes
>candidates 
>who take clear stands on controversial issues and rewards candidates who
>say 
>little of substance." This is a major theme of the overall draft, and in
>my 
>view it is extremely theoretical and debatable and probably quite
>mistaken.
>
>Also, the draft neglects to mention perhaps the single greatest failing
>of 
>IRV, that it undervalues and fails to adequately take into account the 
>information provided by voters in their 2nd choice, 3rd choice, etc.
>rankings. As a 
>result, it can easily enable a popular but very divisive candidate in a
>bitterly 
>divided electorate (as the U.S. electorate arguably is today, for
>example) to 
>defeat a strong compromise candidate who is the second choice of a large 
>majority of the electorate but the first choice of fewer people than
>favor two of 
>the most divisive candidates. Thus, Condorcet voting is arguably more
>likely to 
>elect candidates that will reduce a society's divisiveness, while IRV is
>more 
>likely to elect candidates that will sustain or even increase a society's 
>divisiveness.
>
>-Ralph Suter
>----
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