[EM] Why I think IRV isn't a serious alternative 2

[Kristofer Munsterhjelm]

Markus Schulze wrote:
> Hallo,
> 
> James Gilmour wrote (24 Dec 2008):
> 
>> IRV has been used for public elections for many decades
>> in several countries.  In contrast, despite having been
>> around for about 220 years, the Condorcet voting system
>> has not been used in any public elections anywhere,
>> so far as I am aware.  That could perhaps change if a
>> threshold were implemented to exclude the possibility
>> of a weak Condorcet winner AND if a SIMPLE method were
>> agreed to break Condorcet cycles.
> 
> I don't agree to your proposal to introduce a threshold
> (of first preferences) to Condorcet to make Condorcet
> look more like IRV. As I said in my 21 Dec 2007 mail:
> 
> http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2007-December/021063.html

[snip]

I was the one who made that proposal, but mostly out of practicality 
than anything. To have an explicit threshold or cutoff is a bit hacky in 
that there's no theoretical reason for it, but if we're down to the 
choice between Condorcet and hack, or no Condorcet at all, Condorcet and 
hack would be better than FPP (IRV, etc).

Do you think my runoff idea could work, or is it too complex? If it's 
not, there's another property which may make "weak" winners more 
acceptable: if it's the true CW, then it'll win in the second round by 
first preference votes alone (since for the CW, for any one alternative, 
more people prefer the CW to that alternative than vice versa). However, 
if it's a very weak candidate, then the other candidate with a greater 
core support/FPP support/whatever would be chosen instead.