[EM] To Jeff O'Neil, Re: Merrill, etc.

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

Jeff O'Neil said:

To be specific, Merrill's simulations show that IRV is much better than
PR.  Merrill is fairly supportive of IRV in his book.

I reply:

As has already been pointed out, Merrill's simulations didn't include PR.

As for being supportive of IRV, that's a vague term. Merrill's simulations 
showed IRV doing signifilcantly worse than Approval in social utility. He 
explained why: IRV has a "squeeze effect, in which the median candidate gets 
squeezed out by neighboring candidates who are getting the incoming 
transfers from eliminated extremes.

I've shown 5-candidate examples of the squeeze effect. Some here have called 
it a contrived failure example, but it requires only that 1st choice support 
taper away from the voter median candidate.

Merrill's simulations show likewise that, rather than being a contrived 
objection to IRV, the squeeze effect is real and will happen often.  And 
that it will lower IRV's SU results, and that IRV won't do nearly as well as 
Approval at SU.

Condorcet does better still at SU, but Approval soundly beats IRV at SU.

Jeff continued:

Another point is the we have an entrenched two-party system in the US and
that isn't going to change anytime soon (though I wish it would).

I reply:

No, with Plurality or IRV that won't change. But Approval or Condorcet won't 
artificially perpetuate our method-artifact "2-party system".

Jeff continued:

Under a
strong two-party system, most elections will have two strong candidates and
a few weak candidates.  In such a situation, IRV will generally elect the
Condorcet winner.

I reply:

That's just it: IRV only escapes its big failure if it's a 2-party system, 
with no other viable contenders. As soon as a "3rd party" challenges the 
big-2, IRV falls apart. Then, people fearing IRV's very real 
lesser-of-2-evils problem would insincerely rank their compromise big-2 
candidate in 1st place.

Jeff continued:

Until we have PR for legislatures it doesn't make much
of a difference whether we use IRV or Condorcet for single-winner
elections.

I reply:

No, that isn't true at all. Approval or Condorcet instead of Plurality or 
IRV would make all the difference. People being able to fully vote for their 
favorite would make all the difference.

PR merely postpones single-winner choices to Congress, Legislature or 
Parliament. Single-winner social choice methods are the fundamental 
implementation issue of democracy. PR is nothing but a postponement that 
hands the choices to a legislature. At best the legislature is a scale-model 
of the electorate, and the same choice task remains.

PR is obsolete. Now Direct Democracy (DD) is easily feasible with today's 
technology. And DD would be much better accepted by Americans than would PR.

I'm not saying that I oppose PR, but PR is nothing but an obsolete 
substitute for DD.

Jim Hightower said that if we want to clear the water, we first have to get 
the hogs out of the creek. With government no longer dominated by 
"representatives", we'd be rid of corrupt politicians.

Jeff continued:

To bring back my previous point, the practical issues are as
important as the theoretical issues.

I reply:

IRVists like to claim that IRV's problems are theoretical. No, they're real, 
and they'll happen for sure. Maybe they arlready are--In existing IRV 
elections, the information needed to show IRV's failures isn't recorded or 
reported.

Jeff continued:

Lets take what we can
get and not sabotage efforts to get IRV adopted.

I reply:

That sounds like the person who says "Let's take what we can get, and vote 
for Kerry because he's the best we can get, the only viable candidate other 
than Bush.

Nonsense. Only the media, and the people who believe the media, make Kerry 
the only viable candidate other than Bush. And neither is IRV the best that 
we can get. For one thing, Approval is much easeir to define, explain, 
propose, and implement than IRV. Lilkewise CR.

Some legislators are proposing one Condorcet too.

Mike Ossipoff

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