[EM] Re: Candidate withdrawal option

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

James--

Yes, it seems to me that the candidate withdrawal option would help any 
voting system. It would avoid the worst of Plurality & IRV, and it would 
tend to complete the perfection of Condorcet(wv).

When the subject was being discussed on EM a few years ago, I was saying 
that the candidate withdrawal option would give Condorcet an additional 
protection against offensive order-reversal, for the reasons that you´ve 
described.

It seems to me that Condorcet(wv) has good built-in protection against 
offensive order-reversal, but the candidate withdrawal would be a good 
anti-reversal enhancement. We´ve discussed a number of anti-order-reversal 
enhancements for Condorcet, and the candidate withdrawal option is a good 
one.

I believe that it was Steve Eppley who pointed out that the CWO, for 
Plurality, would be very helpful for getting rid of strategy problems, 
without asking for a change in the actual voting system.

When CWO is suggested to IRV promoters, they always emphatically reject it, 
saying that it would take control away from the voter. As if it somehow 
violates your rights when your favorite withdraws when he can´t win, and 
lets your vote go immediately to your next choice.

IRVists have never been willing to propose ERIRV instead of IRV. They don´t 
seriously object to it, but only say they don´t understand the need for it. 
One, for instance, dismissed it by saying that he asked his wife about it 
and she said that she didn´t know why one would want to use it. Their 
objection to proposing ERIRV instead of IRV is that it´s simpler to propose 
the simpler IRV. But that´s a case where the simpler of the 2 proposals is 
no good at all, and the slightly less simple one is the only one of the two 
that is adequate.

That same person said that the CWO fails the "laugh test". I asked him if he 
could define that test or criterion, but he had no reply. Presumably he 
meant that letting a losing candidate withdraw would be too preposterous to 
be suggested, so preposterous that it isn´t even necessary to say what´s 
preposterous about it. And, presumably, irrevocably eliminating candidates 
based on 1st choices, a tiny fraction of the election´s information; and 
calling a majority-beaten candidate a majority winner because there´s one 
candidate he has a majority against; and causing a candidate to lose because 
someone voted him higher; and saying that IRV lets people safely rank their 
favorite in 1st place--as long as he´s a sure loser--passes his laugh test 
:-)

I never replied on-list to your most recent posting about Cardinal Pairwise, 
AERLO & ATLO. So let me just say here that it seems to me that CP probably 
accomplishes the same gains as AERLO & ATLO. The advantage of AERLO & ATLO 
is that they´re enhancements that can be added later, without changing the 
voting system itself. It seems to me that they´re a more proposable route to 
enhanced Condorcet. CP would be good too, but AERLO & ATLO offer a more 
explicitly, transparently obvious way to accomplish the enhancement goals 
than CP does, it seems to me.

These enhancements are things to suggest _after_ Condorcet has been adopted.

Anyway, now, when Condorcet has yet to be widely-known, much less adopted, 
and enhanced Condorcet is farther away still, this isn´t the time to let 
ourselves be distracted about the relative advantages of two Condorcet 
enhancements (and there aren´t only two of them). That energy would be 
better spent doing what we can to stop IRV, and proposing Approval, CR,  & 
Condorcet. There are enough advocates of Condorcet, CR & Approval that, with 
a little unity, we could probably stop IRV and get one of those better 
methods enacted somwhere.

Mike Ossipoff

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