[EM] To Bill Lewis Clark re: stepping-stone

[Eric Gorr]

At 4:40 PM -0500 1/24/04, Bill Lewis Clark wrote:
>But my point is mainly that I'd like to see less badmouthing of IRV and
>its supporters, and more uniting for a common goal.  IRV has a lot more
>visible public support at the moment, and stands an actual chance of
>coming into the national spotlight.  Supporters of ANY alternative voting
>system should get behind that movement, rather than trying to fight it.

Sorry, but to support so obviously an inferior method which simply 
does not provide a net benefit over Plurality is just silly.

You seem to recognize that Condorcet is the superior system, but 
support IRV merely because it is popular and want change no matter 
how bad that change will turn out to be.

Change for the sake of change is not a compelling reason to make a change.

>  > IRV may offer some benefits over Plurality, but those benefits are
>>  easily negated by the well known extreme flaws of the system, leaving
>>  us with no net improvement.
>
>If there's no net improvement, then Plurality must have some benefits over
>IRV as well

This is completely illogical. No such conclusion can be drawn from my 
statement.

For example, if you have person A standing at point 0 and person B at 
point 5, but B then walks back 5, they are at the same point. You 
cannot claim that A is standing in front of B.

>-- what, specifically, are they?

None.

Furthermore, you stated yourself:

    "I've read claims in the past that there are potential scenarios in
     which IRV even does worse than Plurality, and I've conceded these as being
     true..."

Now, you did go on to say that:

   "but describing extremely unrealistic situations."

So, explain why each of the cases where IRV would perform worse then 
Plurality are only capable of describing extremely unrealistic 
situations.

>Unless and until some candidates start supporting Condorcet, it's simply
>not a realistic option.

So, what have you done to make the candidates aware of Condorcet?