[EM] Real IRV Ranked Ballots

[wclark at xoom.org]

Dave Ketchum wrote:

> How does IRV justify giving A a win, when most voters agree B is better?

(Minus the backstory:)

40 A
29 B
31 C,B

A has greater "depth of support."  Over half the people who rank B over A
don't support B strongly enough to rank that candidate first -- so how
dedicated are they, really?  Should their half-hearted votes outweigh the
obviously more dedicated support that A has?

(And to be clear, no I don't buy into that argument.  But I think many IRV
supporters genuinely do.  And I don't think they're "stupid" for thinking
the way they do, they just have a different set of opinions as to what's
most important in selecting representatives.)

The problem with examples like these is that too much depends on
interpretation and backstory.  If you're not convinced that compromise
candidates are a good thing (and many IRV supporters fall into this
category) then you're going to have a radically different interpretation
of these cases.

-Bill Clark

-- 
Ralph Nader for US President in 2004
http://votenader.org/