[Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting

[Aaron Armitage]

--- On Sun, 7/27/08, Terry Bouricius <terryb at burlingtontelecom.net> wrote:

> From: Terry Bouricius <terryb at burlingtontelecom.net>
> Subject: Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting
> To: election-methods at lists.electorama.com
> Date: Sunday, July 27, 2008, 2:26 PM
> While I agree that "core support" is not always
> well measured by first 
> choices (multiple clones can make all these clones appear
> to have little 
> "core" support, where any of them would appear to
> have massive core 
> support running alone). However, I think the concept of
> "core support" is 
> still an important factor in multi-candidate elections.
> While I think 
> Condorcet methods are much better than most methods, I
> remain concerned 
> that it may, in fact, reward inoffensive candidates who
> successfully hide 
> their policy positions, rather than just true
> "compromise" candidates. 
> Voters tend to have clear opinions of candidates at the top
> and bottom of 
> their preference rankings, leaving the door open for
> inoffensive 
> candidates who have avoided revealing any controversial
> views, to become 
> EVERY voter's second choice ("at least he must be
> better than X") and 
> likely Condorcet winner. The voting method will cause
> candidates to tailor 
> their campaigns accordingly, and I fear Condorcet
> encourages candidates to 
> limit voter information and instead campaign with slogans
> like "I am the 
> candidate who listen to you" and policy will become
> even LESS discussed in 
> campaigns than is already the case in the U.S.
> 
> So an important caveat to the assertion that "if a
> majority prefers Brad 
> over Carter, this preference exists whether the voting
> system does 
> anything with it"...is that the voting method in use
> will affect candidate 
> behavior, and thus may result in Brad NOT being actually
> preferred over 
> Carter under a different voting method. In other words,
> voter preferences 
> among candidates (whether scores, or rankings) are not
> actually "given," 
> as we assume when working out models (A>B>C), but
> will change depending on 
> what campaign style is rewarded by the voting method in
> use.
> 
> Terry Bouricius
> 
> 


I'm not sure this objection applies much more strongly to Condorcet methods than any other single-winner system; a candidate with any possible rough edges taken off will always have more appeal to moderates and low-information voters than one who takes clear policy positions. The closest thing to a real solution is to use proportional multi-winner elections wherever possible.