[EM] Re: IRV letter

[Chris Benham]

Participants,
That anti-IRV letter mis-represnted IRV in action in Australia, in some 
places confusing it with corrupted
Hare-Clarke /quasi-list  PR that is used to elect the Australian Senate.
As a replacement for Plurality  or  Top Two Runoff,  I  consider IRV to 
be a very worthwhile reform.
I rate all methods that meet (Mutual) Majority and Clone Independence to 
be at least slightly better than
all methods that do not.
IRV and  Plurality  have (as Woodall would put it) have different  "sets 
of  properties", ie they have different
flaws  and  comply with different technical criteria. I have seen some 
plausible-looking anti-IRV propaganda
that  rests on some made-up examples. When comparing any two imperfect 
methods, it alway possible to
contrive some example in which one seems to perform much better than the 
other.
As Eric Gorr wrote (Fri.Apr.23):

>Examples have previously been given which demonstrates IRV inability 
>to perform better then Plurality. In these cases, IRV has failed to 
>select the Condorcet Winner while Plurality did select the Condorcet 
>Winner.
>
So what?  It is well-known  (and obvious) that  IRV is FAR more likely 
to elect the Condorcet Winner than
Plurality.  So if anyone mentions the CW in an informed honest 
discussion of  IRV vs. Plurality, it should be to
chalk up a point for IRV .
To seriously make the case that IRV is not better than Plurality, 
instead of talking about the made-up example a person
should
(a) make the case that compliance with mostly sundry mathematical 
neatness criteria (like Participation and  Monotoncity)
weigh as much as compliance with  (mutual) Majority  and  Clone 
Independence.
(b) and/or  point to some computer simulations which show something
(c) and/or maybe even point to some real-life examles. IRV  has been in 
use in public political elections for most of a century.

Chris Benham