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

[James Gilmour]

Curt Siffert wrote:
> In 2000, the nation collectively and clearly preferred Gore to Nader.
> The point remains, though, regarding system of values.  

Exactly.

> People like to  circle the wagons and don't like to be wrong.

I'm not sure I completely understand your meaning  -  the problem of a shared language!  -  nor am I
sure why people are likely to have the intuitive response I suggest.  But my experience as a
campaigner for voting reform leads me to believe they will intuitively reject the CW who has only 1%
or 2% of the first preferences.

>  Their preferences can 
> change due to knowledge of how others have voted.

Yes, I think is true and is a major difference between IRV and the exhaustive ballot (run-off with
successive elimination of only the bottom candidate).  Some would see the difference as an advantage
of IRV; others would see the same difference as an advantage of the exhaustive ballot.


> 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.

It must be for others your side of 'the pond' to comment on the validity of your example and
analysis, but it fits with what we heard here.


> 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.

Maybe not, but should you implement a voting system in which this COULD happen?  And of course, we
don't know where the flip-over point lies between acceptance and rejection. We guess that 32/35/33
would be acceptable.  But just how far towards 3/49/48 would an election have to go before the
voting system was rejected?

James (Gilmour  -  to avoid confusion with the other Jameses)