[EM] Draft of CVD analysis about IRV vs. Condorcet Voting
RLSuter at aol.com
RLSuter at aol.com
Sat Apr 3 08:38:01 PST 2004
To James and Ernie,
Thanks very much for your comments. I agree with Ernie that it's important to
be civil. If my comments regarding the CVD draft seemed unnecessarily
combative, that was not my intention, and I'll try to be more careful in the future.
But please keep in mind that I was responding to what struck me as uncivil
rhetoric in the draft, beginning with the initial unfair (if not insulting)
characterization of Condorcet as a method "favored by some mathematicians".
I actually have been generally supportive of CVD's work except for its
advocacy of IRV and the refusal of its leaders to allow any debate within the
organization concerning the pros and cons of IRV and other single winner methods. In
fact, I attended the 1992 founding convention in Cincinnati of Citizens for
Proportional Representation, the organizational precursur of CVD. I met Rob
Richie there and have talked or exchanged emails with him a number of times since
them. I also know Dan Johnson-Weinberger of CVD and the Midwest Democracy
Center (we both live in Chicago), who is heading up efforts to promote cumulative
voting and IRV legislation in Illinois.
Until, now, CVD's leaders have dealt with opponents of IRV by ignoring them,
despite the fact that CVD's advisory board includes prominent supporters of
other methods, including both Condorcet and Approval. (Aside from Lijphart, the
board also includes Steven Brams, co-inventor of aproval voting). But with the
recent Scientific American article about "true majority voting" (a new name
for Condorcet) and a November 2002 Science News article about approval voting,
that's becoming harder to do. My view is that CVD should have encouraged
debate within the organization about single winner methods before deciding to
commit to IRV. Instead, Richie and a few other leaders apparently decided among
themselves to go with IRV and to discourage further debate.
I must thank Steve Epply for educating me about the importance of single
winner reform and the advantages of Condorcet over IRV. He and I participated in
some very interesting and informative discussions on the Alliance for Democracy
email list in 1996. At one point, Rob Richie and another CVD leader engaged
in a brief discussion with us on the list. I was less impressed with their
arguments for IRV than Steve's arguments for Condorcet, but Rob and the other CVD
person dropped out of the discussion pretty quickly. I appealed to Rob and
Steven Hill by email to allow a debate about IRV at the 1997 convention (not 100%
sure of that date), but got no response from either of them.
Perhaps I should have been more vocal over the years, but other issues and
projects have been much greater priorities for me than voting reform, and I have
had limited time and resources to engage in debates on issues of different
kinds. At the same time, I have appreciated most of CVD's work and have not been
eager to criticize the organization publicly about this, especially given
that my prospects for success didn't seem very great. (I'm not an academic or
well known activist and have no very useful credentials.)
But I now think that somehow things need to change and there is an urgent
need for greater public discussion of alternative single winner voting methods.
CVD is probably too committed to IRV to be willing to sponsor that discussion,
so it will have to be started some other way. I'm tentatively planning a visit
to DC next weekend and may meet with Eric Gorr to talk about this. Is there
anyone else on the list who lives in or near DC who would like to join us?
-Ralph Suter
In a message dated 4/3/04 12:30:26 AM Central Standard Time, drernie at mac.com
writes:
<< Hi Ralph,
I think its a fair critique, but I would encourage you to approach them
in a more positive fashion. For example, I think they do raise a
number of valid points, and this seems the first most of us have seen
of IRV supporters actually trying to tackle the issues head on.
I would encourage you to start with affirming their valid points before
criticizing the (notable) weaknesses, as I think it will make it more
likely for them to acknowledge your complaints. After all, you're
trying to write *to* them, not *about* them, so it pays to be civil.
-- Ernie P.
On Apr 3, 2004, at 1:27 AM, James Green-Armytage wrote:
>
> 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 >>
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