[EM] IRV vs Range on totalizing machines

[Warren Smith]

>Scott Ritchie:
>Indicating a ranked ballot on a machine not designed for it is no more
>difficult than indicating a ranged ballot.  This follows naturally from
>the fact that you can do a one-way transformation on a ranged ballot to
>a ranked ballot.

>There's a great picture of an old New York lever machine converted to
>STV during New York's brief stint with it in the forties here:

>http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/history/public_history/PR/voting_machine.html

>At least, I think that's what's going on in that picture.

--WDS reply.
First, that 1937 picture is not at all the sort of lever machine that
is used in NY state.  It is an entirely different machine, apparently 
purpose-designed to handle STV voting (based on the caption and the fact the New York
city in 1937 was using STV voting - they later abandoned it and switched back to
plurality, a fact that IRV advocates sometimes seem to conveniently ignore and/or
do not examine sufficiently).  These machines were evidently eventually junked by NY 
after the switch back to plurality.

Second, it is *false* that you can do IRV on totalizing machines
such as New York's lever mechanical-counter machines (which involve
a lot of binary levers on the front, and there are counters you can read on
the back).  There could indeed be a way for a voter to INDICATE a ranked ballot
to those machines via a range<-->ranked transformation.  But so what?
The machine cannot do anything useful with any such indication.  It is sort
of like me talking to you in Ancient Babylonian.  Of course, you are capable
of listening to me, but it does not do either of us any good.   

On the other hand, with range voting, it is not only possible for the voter to INDICATE
the range vote to a New York style machine, it also is possible for the machine to DIGEST
those votes and for the results of the range election to be easily computed from the
readouts on the back of the machine.  Exactly how this is done, is discussed
on the CRV site
   http://math.temple.edu/~wds/crv/RangeVoting.html
and click "VotingMachines" on the left.

This contrast (range & approval voting - can be handled; IRV - cannot) also is the case
not only on New York style lever machines, but in fact on every kind of non-reprogrammable
machine designed to handle plurality voting in the USA.  This also includes
some punch card and optical scan machines.  Every such
machine can handle range.  No such machine can handle IRV.  

Are you the same Scott Ritchie associated with the CVD, the important
pro-IRV-voting group?  If so, I believe we should talk.  I believe the CVD,
while having accomplished a great deal (and I'm sure you are a lot
more familiar with what those accomplishments are, and I would like to
know about them), is headed in some important wrong directions which
probably will assure failure.  (And I am not the only one who feels this way.)  
I believe that the CVD, by realizing what those problems are and by planning a 
unified strategy (and perhaps even a merge) with my new nascent CRV organization, would be able 
to achieve much more and avoid some serious mistakes.   I claim we want to combine our
strengths and eliminate our weaknesses, and the strengths and weaknesses of
the CRV and CVD happen to be quite complementary.

I will send you (Ritchie) some contact information by direct email.
wds