[Election-Methods] Fwd: FYI - FairVote MN Responds to Lawsuit Against IRV

[Kathy Dopp]

 Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2007 17:55:41 -0500
> From: Dave Ketchum <davek at clarityconnect.com>
> Subject: Re: [Election-Methods] RE : Re: Fwd: FYI - FairVote MN
>         Responds        toLawsuit Against IRV
> James' discussion of history leading up to IRV makes sense, and IRV often
> doing counting second choices, etc., often resulting in better assignment
> of winners.  Trouble is, often is not synonymous with always - leading to
> some of us backing Condorcet for using the same ballot and basic thoughts
> as IRV, but looking at all that the voter says.  Sample election
> (admittedly biased):
>        27 Bush
>        26 Nader/Gore
>        24 Paul/Gore
>        23 Gore
>
> Voters agree, 73-27, to not liking Bush.
>
> IRV will first see that many Gore backers like Nader or Paul even better,
> forget Gore, and let Bush win over Nader, a 27-26 "majority".  Note that
> Nader backers, if they had suspected this outcome, could have omitted
> voting for Nader or Paul.
>
> Condorcet will see:
>        73 Gore winning over 27 Bush
>        47 Gore/26 Nader
>        49 Gore/24 Paul
>        27 Bush/26 Nader
>        27 Bush/24 Paul
>        26 Nader/24 Paul

Dave,
Well looks like I'm getting a quick lesson in the Condorcet method.

I have to say that I like the Condorcet method better than IRV because
it does seem to treat the ballots equally - as long as voters vote for
the same number of candidates - but I still don't like it as much as a
system that weights a voter's first choice more than a voter's second
choice, and so forth.

Question: I would think that most voters would vote for two candidates
since that gives the voters essentially two votes for the one ballot,
at least the way you've shown the tabulation.

Condorcet seems to treat all the choices of each voter the same also.
I.e. If I vote for Nader/Paul - my votes for Nader and those for Paul
count equally with each other. No ranking.

I prefer a weighted method where I can give my first choice a certain
weight more than my second choice, but all the candidates I vote for
are tabulated - so there are no "elimination rounds".

Kathy