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

[Dr.Ernie Prabhakar]

Hi James,


On May 19, 2004, at 3:42 PM, James Gilmour wrote:

> James Green-Armytage suggested:
>> 48: Bush > McCain > Gore
>> 3: McCain > Bush > Gore
>> 49: Gore > McCain > Bush
>
> My hypothesis is that politicians and the general public are likely to 
> reject both the election result and the voting system if the voting 
> system allows the "weak middle" to come through and win when that 
> "weak middle" has the first-preference support of only a very small 
> percentage of the voters.  They understand very well all the ideas of 
> "compromise" and "everyone's second choice", but based on their 
> response on some other "dimension", they will reject the result and 
> the voting system that
> produced it.

That's why I'm having a hard time understanding (perhaps I completely 
missed your point about 'other dimension').  I realize the context here 
is a 'final runoff', but I think the larger question is 'how do we rate 
the validity of IRV's winner vs. Condorcet's winner" - right?

Are we assuming that people are *forced* to specify a full ballot?  
Then I can see how people might be unhappy with their second choice 
being elected.    That's a good argument for allowing partial ballots, 
not an argument against Condorcet.

With partial ballots case, if people *really* want their first choice 
elected, then it would seem to me that either:
a) they'd bullet vote
b) they'd include a second-choice candidate precisely *because* they're 
afraid their third-choice might win, and would thus be relieved that 
their second choice prevented it.

Frankly, I think Condorcet is *far* less complicated than the Electoral 
College.  There was widespread fear that people would be offended and 
confused when the electoral vote came out different than the popular 
vote, but that turned out not to be the case (yes, people were offended 
and confused, but for a very different reason).

My criteria for an election method is that it most efficiently use the 
information presented.   I haven't found anything more efficient from a 
purely information theory perspective than Condorcet, and I think that 
such a perspective is far easier to justify that various hypotheses 
about likely social utility distributions.  I believe the more you 
respect people's information, then overall the happier they'll be.

-- Ernie P.

-----------
Ernest N. Prabhakar, Ph.D. <DrErnie at RadicalCentrism.org>
RadicalCentrism.org is an anti-partisan think tank near Sacramento, 
California, dedicated to developing and promoting the ideals of 
Reality, Character, Community and Humility as expressed in our Radical 
Centrist Manifesto: Ground Rules of Civil Society 
<http://RadicalCentrism.org/manifesto.html>