[EM] Re: IRV vs Range on totalizing machines

[Scott Ritchie]

On Fri, 2005-08-19 at 10:26 -0400, Warren Smith wrote:
> >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.
> 

New York switched away from STV because it was a system of proportional
representation and people unwanted in the government started winning
seats such as blacks, women, and political minorities including an
occasional communist.  One of those blacks, by the way, was Adam Clayton
Powell Jr., who went on to become the first African-American in
Congress.  The New York machine of Tammany Hall meanwhile, having been
completely eliminated from their kingmaker role after STV was
implemented, weren't particularly fond of PR either - when STV was
removed they returned to dominance, securing every seat.  New York
abandoning multi-member STV (not IRV) in a huff because it wasn't easy
to control and was providing representation to the city's marginalized
voting public is hardly a scar on STV.

> 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.   
> 

I was under the impression that modern lever machines didn't keep a
running mechanical total anymore (unlike the old lever machines), since
these were so prone to error and tampering.  Instead, they keep some
other record of the individual ballots and simply use the lever as a
user interface device.  Then again, some localities were using equipment
from the late 1800s, so who knows.

Regardless, the use of existing machines is absolutely not an issue
worth considering in the US anyway.  The Help America Vote Act has
promised BILLIONS of dollars to replace old voting machines, and
virtually every county in the country is due for an upgrade within the
next 10 years anyway.  Optical scan machines, DRE machines, and even
punchcard machines can handle all kinds of ballots fairly easily.

> 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've never really worked personally with them, but my name has appeared
in so many places regarding voting it's likely the case that you're
thinking of me.  Right now I'm involved with a very local campaign
you've probably not heard of known as Davis Citizens for Representation
http://www.davischoicevoting.org/ trying to use a multimember
proportional STV method for our city council elections rather than
plurality at large (which is rather common among American localities.)

> 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.
> 

Well, I think we all know that simple plurality methods, particularly in
multiple winner scenarios, are a bit silly.  

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

Thanks,
Scott Ritchie