[EM] another Condorcet/IRV politics question

[Dave Ketchum]

Mike's words are tempting, but James makes more sense.

I only argue against IRV based on the added difficulty of selling 
Condorcet where users have just gone thru a switch to IRV.  ASSUMING we 
worked hard enough to be successful in getting significant use of 
Condorcet, we should not be concerned if IRV also got significant use - 
the visibility should attend to killing IRV once it had declared a few 
undeserved winners.

A reminder - IRV usually does pretty well:
      Both use identical ballots.
      They usually agree as to winner - it takes MORE THAN two strong 
candidates to provide ammunition for disagreement - each has no trouble 
discarding the real lemons.

When arguing against Approval, ranking helps:
      Just rank in order - something the voter must do the basics of in 
Plurality, and less headaches than deciding whether to Approve.
      With Condorcet, equal ranking can be permissible when the voter 
desires - though harder to support in IRV.

So, we come back to WV vs Margins - seems like WV needs to win decisively.

On Mon, 02 May 2005 08:32:07 -0400 James Green-Armytage wrote:

> 
> Mike, you wrote:
> 
>>Condorcetists and Approvalists can and 
>>will sink IRV anywhere where they have the opportunity and the time to
>>tell 
>>the people what IRV is like.
>>
> and:
> 
>>Really, we should have an organization dedicated to finding out about
>>each 
>>IRV proposal in the U.S., or anywhere, and taking turns writing to the 
>>decisionmakers involved in the choice, or getting our information
>>published 
>>in newspaper letters or ballot-pamphlets there, attending forums, etc. We 
>>could fairly divide the time and labor of doing that work. I can't do it 
>>alone.
>>
> 
> 	Rather than spending your effort just on opposing IRV, as long as you're
> getting organized and active, why not propose WV as a counterproposal
> wherever IRV is being proposed? 
> 	Or better yet, why not just spend your organizing effort proposing WV in
> some district where you think that it is winnable, whether IRV is being
> proposed there or not?
> 	If IRV is used in some places, and WV is used in others, and approval is
> used in some others... and there is evidence that WV and/or approval is
> having more of a positive impact than IRV, don't you think that this would
> be the best argument in favor of WV or approval, better than any argument
> we can make based on theory alone?
> 	In the US, different areas have a lot of independence in choosing their
> voting systems. I don't see why different areas shouldn't try different
> methods. Hence, at this time when most places still use plurality and
> runoffs, the interaction between IRV and Condorcet isn't zero sum. (Less
> IRV implementation doesn't necessarily mean more Condorcet implementation,
> and vice versa.)
> 	In short, if your goal is WV implementation, I think that you should
> focus on WV implementation, rather than IRV opposition. Same if your goal
> is approval implementation or CR implementation.
> 
> Sincerely,
> James

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  Dave Ketchum   108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY  13827-1708   607-687-5026
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