[EM] IRV letter
Curt Siffert
siffert at museworld.com
Thu Apr 22 19:18:07 PDT 2004
I like explaining it in real-world scenarios rather than using numbers
and rankings, for instance:
~^~^~^~^
Right now in the U.S., our voters are registered in thirds - about a
third are Republican, about a third are Democrat, and slightly less
than a third are Independent.
Say you had an election of three candidates - a centrist, and two
wingers. They might each have a third of the vote, the centrist
slightly less than the other two. The centrist would almost certainly
be the second choice of those who prefer the wingers, given that they
would dislike the candidate from the opposite wing.
It's obvious that in this scenario, the centrist would be the consensus
choice. However, IRV would eliminate the centrist first.
~^~^~^~^
I think that the approach of listing out numerical examples where odd
things happen is a difficult approach, because there is never any
indication of how likely that scenario is. Putting it in real-world
terms like the above would help.
As for the partial ballots, it may help to point out that the system
only looks at a person's full ballot "if necessary", but in most cases
it completely ignores most of the ranking that a voter gives. If a
voter fills out a ballot, wouldn't they want their full ballot to
count?
I also think that it helps to point out that in effect, IRV gives a
"bonus" to first-place votes. While this may make sense intuitively at
first, point out that it assumes that everyone *far* prefers their
first choice, disenfranchising those who may like their first two
choices about equally, but hate the third. We know the contradictions
that can happen when people "weight" their choices as in Borda, etc, so
wouldn't it make more sense to use a system that makes no such
assumptions? Condorcet is the only one that looks at preferences, and
preferences only.
If the goal is to find a consensus choice and to select the candidate
that the population prefers to any one other candidate, then Condorcet
is the only way to go.
Thoughts along these lines have helped me advocate Condorcet in the
past.
Curt
On Apr 22, 2004, at 6:44 PM, MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote:
> Here's my letter that I'll be sending to everywere where I hear that
> there's an IRV proposal. Of course I may add to and improve the letter
> as I keep using it. Feel free to use any information in it, or to copy
> or forward the entire letter, or to quote or use it entire or in part
> in any medium:
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