[EM] Re: IRV letter

[Adam Tarr]

Bill Clark wrote:

>Forest Simmons wrote:
>
> > 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.
>
>Why do you think that is?  Do you think they saw you as adversarial, and
>went on the defensive?  Were they predisposed (perhaps by means of faulty
>stereotypes) to dismiss Condorcet supporters as crackpots?  Were they
>simply stupid?

My guess is that they simply reacted to him as another obstacle to getting 
their agenda across.  This is a natural emotional reaction - it's called 
"Cognitive Dissonance".  People don't like being told that they've put a 
ton of time and effort into the wrong reform, and they need to step back 
from many of the advances they've worked hard to get and start over.  So, 
they reject any criticism out of hand as incorrect, regardless of the 
arguments used.

My guess is that the committee members:

1)  Were largely unfamiliar with Condorcet,
2)  Instinctively associated Forest's criticisms with the sort of bogus 
criticisms or IRV we saw in that Utah essay, and
3)  Sought to beat down Condorcet with the same stick they use against 
those criticisms.

>I think it's very important to find a way to get along with IRV
>supporters, to find some strategy for dealing with them that doesn't
>always result in division.  They vastly outnumber us.  They actually wield
>enough political clout to get election reform measures on the ballot --
>and passed.  It's worth making friends with them (and of course, quietly
>taking over their organization while we're at it.)

The problem is that while you can convince a lot of rank-and-file IRV 
supporters that Condorcet is better.  I don't really see how we could 
internally shift the movement to Condorcet.  As Forest and Mike and others 
have pointed out, these organizations are controlled from the top, and 
those at the top are by far the hardest to control.

In my opinion, we're left with two options:

1)  Let IRVists be, or even aid and abet them, and then launch an 
independent movement that seeks to effect Condorcet and/or turn IRV systems 
into Condorcet systems.

2)  Oppose IRVists and make their lives difficult enough that they are 
actually forced to accommodate us.

Both of these are tall orders.

> > 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.
>
>Maybe that's the trick, then -- give IRV supporters "stepping stone"
>systems that improve on what they're already familiar with.  That will
>eventually get them thinking about the kinds of issues that makes IRV less
>appealing (or at least better understood for how it really works.)
>
>So, rather than pointing out the flaws with IRV, perhaps a better strategy
>would be to take all the features of IRV that supporters *like* and to
>devise an election method that also exhibits those features.  Then, once
>they realize that an attack on IRV isn't necessarily an attack on the
>features they consider important, it's safe to point out IRV flaws.

I don't support throwing our weight behind a worse system than a good wv 
Condorcet system, simply because we think it might appeal to some IRVists 
better.  While candidate proxy is an improvement over IRV, I'd guess that 
most IRV supporters will reject it because it _seems_ like it gives less 
control to the voters.  And most of us agree that Condorcet is 
significantly better than proxy (my second choice may not be the same as my 
favorite's, after all).  I think a "rank and file" IRV supporter on the 
street would be more likely to support Condorcet than candidate proxy.  And 
honestly, we should be aiming to convince the rank-and-file rather than the 
leadership.

-Adam