[EM] IRV's "majority winner". What if we let the people choose?

[Curt Siffert]

In 2000, the nation collectively and clearly preferred Gore to Nader.

The point remains, though, regarding system of values.  People like to 
circle the wagons and don't like to be wrong.  Their preferences can 
change due to knowledge of how others have voted.  Just look at the 
Democratic Primary - a close race before Iowa, but then due to the 
widely reported results of two states, it was Kerry all the way, even 
when it was still possible for others to win the nomination.  It's 
negative in some ways (it's as if some people believe they get a prize 
for voting for the winner), but the concern remains of a population 
feeling cheated after the fact.  There can be a collective sense of 
injustice even if everyone was individually enfranchised.

Honestly, though, I don't believe the 3/49/48 scenario would ever 
happen in a political election.  For a candidate to have gathered 
enough support to even compete in an election, he or she would have to 
have a significant amount of first-place supporters.


On May 15, 2004, at 11:42 PM, James Gilmour wrote:

> Imagine a "real-life" scenario: Bush, Gore, Nader.  Would we really 
> have had four years of
> President Nader?  This is about more than voting arithmetic and 
> measures for identifying "the most
> representative candidate".  It brings in systems of values which are 
> expressed in different
> dimensions from those used to measure representivity.