[EM] No evidence that IRV doesn't fail. Reasons why it must.

[James Gilmour]

Paul said:
> Where I disagree a bit with James  is that I think it is too 
> much to ask the voters to quantify their subjective rankings 
> by coming up with their own weights.

I never suggested we should ask the voters what their weightings were.  What I did say was that our
knowledge that, for most voters, their first preferences were more important than their subsequent
preferences, could not justify the activities of those who were constructing voting systems that
depended on assigning specific values to successive preferences when they had not asked the voters
what those values might be.  There are two possible logical ways forward: 1. if you must assign
values, ask the voters. OR  2. if that is not possible, or is unreasonable, don't play with voting
systems that assign arbitrary values based on some set of assumptions.

Incidentally, there is some interest in using weighted preferences.  Brian Meek (of Meek STV)
described an approach to implementing such a voting system.
James