[EM] Real IRV Ranked Ballots

[Dave Ketchum]

On Tue, 2 Mar 2004 19:11:35 -0500 (EST) wclark at xoom.org wrote:

> Dave Ketchum wrote:
> 
> 
>>How does IRV justify giving A a win, when most voters agree B is better?
>>
> 
> (Minus the backstory:)


So you insist on leaving out my message, making the example empty.


> 
> 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?


So, having left out my message, you dream up your own, to support your 
different goal.

In my message the 60 anti-A voters AGREED that A should be banished to the 
bottom of the barrel - seems to me like about as much "depth of support" 
as you can get.

One detail I did not mention about the anti-A strategists:
      With Condorcet they can permit the contention between B and C, and 
thus learn what their voters think about this.
      With IRV, strategy forbids this - they must discourage C,B votes, 
for too many of these would throw the election to enemy A.

> 
> (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.)
> 

I interpret that paragraph as saying these IRV backers need educating.  It 
is COMMON for major issues such as abortion, gun control, or drug wars to 
divide a population into two groups, and then for one or both groups to 
have disagreements over minor issues.


> 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.
> 

First, IRV and Condorcet should usually agree as to winner - we fight over 
the fringes.

The story has to matter - I offered one to back my beliefs; you used a 
different one to back disagreeing.


> -Bill Clark

-- 
  davek at clarityconnect.com    people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek
  Dave Ketchum   108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY  13827-1708   607-687-5026
            Do to no one what you would not want done to you.
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