[EM] Re: IRV letter

[Forest Simmons]

On Tue, 27 Apr 2004, wclark at xoom.org wrote:

> Adam H Tarr wrote:
>
> > If there was an IRV movement where I lived, I would argue with the
> > people in charge of it, and failing convincing them, I would publicize
> > information about IRV flaws and the better alternatives.  But if all my
> > efforts failed, and I was in the voting booth, I would vote yes on an
> > IRV initiative.
>
> I'd argue with the people in charge as well, but I might hold off on
> publicizing any flaws with IRV.  I don't just plan on voting yes myself, I
> also want other people to vote yes, and publicizing flaws with IRV seems
> somewhat counter to that goal.

When  FairVoteOregon  tried to get an IRV initiative on the ballot in
Oregon a few years back I went to their meetings, explained some of the
defects of IRV, and made some suggestions.

It was like talking to a brick wall.

What bothers me the most is that election reform is about choices, but the
IRV folks don't want to give choices.  They just want IRV.

Why not pit all the best methods head to head against Plurality, and then
adopt the method that beats Plurality by the greatest number of votes (if
plurality isn't the CW).

Wouldn't that be a more democratic way of deciding the voting method than
having a committee of unelected nincompoops decide what the single
alternative is going to be?

Forest

P.S. The one open minded person on the committee liked IRV better than
Approval, CR, or Condorcet, and explained to me why.  All the reasons were
psychological.  To make a long story short, I came up with Candidate Proxy
in an effort to address those psychological issues.  When I tried it out
on him, he thought it was a great inprovement on IRV; the simplest way to
approximate the strong FBC.

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