[EM] Real IRV Election, Disputable Result

[Rob LeGrand]

Jonathan Lundell wrote:
> As a point of clarification, the Burlington rules basically don't
> allow equal-preference ranking. However, they do try to salvage a
> ballot so marked if it can be done unambiguously. The relevant rule:
>
> >4. A ballot that gives two or more candidates the same ranking is
> >exhausted when that ranking is reached, unless only one of the
> >candidates so ranked has advanced to the current round of counting.
>
> (Also, if all the candidates so ranked have been eliminated, the
> ranking is skipped as usual.)

I was just thinking about how exactly they must have counted the ballots
to get the final tallies they did, and I was trying the following three
approaches to tied ranks.

A.  All ballots with any tied ranks (apart from truncation) are thrown
    out before the counting begins.
B.  Each ballot is truncated just above the highest tied rank before the
    counting begins.
C.  Any ballot is thrown out during the count as soon as its top
    remaining rank has a tie.

A is what the official ballot seems to stipulate and C is essentially the
rule that Jonathan quoted above.  I reran the election using these
approaches and got:

   Kiss 4763, Miller 3991 (pairwise result using all ranks)
A: Kiss 4749, Miller 3977
B: Kiss 4761, Miller 3985
C: Kiss 4761, Miller 3986

So it does seem that C is the approach that was officially used.  It all
makes sense now, except that I still don't see how Jan got Kiss 4755,
Miller 3988 . . .

--
Rob LeGrand, psephologist
rob at approvalvoting.org
Citizens for Approval Voting
http://www.approvalvoting.org/

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