[Election-Methods] I Need Reviews of "Ten Reasons to Oppose IRV"

[Juho]

Few quick comments on the referred page.

> 1. Dopp: "Does not solve the "spoiler" problem except in special  
> cases…."

> Whenever a third party or independent candidate is unlikely to be  
> one of the top vote-getters (true in over 99% of U.S. elections),

May be true today in U.S. if one assumes two major parties and mostly  
minor contenders. The situation may change if party structure and  
candidate nomination style change.

> the issue of whether to vote for your favorite choice, or to rank  
> your compromise choice first can resurface in this unique  
> circumstance. But this is extremely rare and no different than a  
> candidate in a party’s political primary arguing “Vote for me  
> because I am more electable in the general election.”

It is true that although IRV has spoiler related problems also the  
current system in U.S. has corresponding problems that may be worse.

Word "unique" is too strong.

> 2. Dopp: “Requires centralized vote counting procedures at the  
> state-level…"
>
> IRV creates no need to centralize the counting or the ballots  
> themselves,

Ireland seems to have centralized control of the counting process and  
centralized counting of the final results although the actual votes  
seem to be held and handled locally as instructed by the centralized  
controller. (This was explained later in point 9.)

> 9. Dopp: “Could necessitate counting all presidential votes in  
> Washington, D.C.…”

> Note that voters certainly would be pleased to have a majority  
> winner in elections for our highest office.

IRV indeed digs out one sort of majority (or plurality, depending on  
how one counts majority) at the last round but there could be other  
rivals that have other kind of majority claims to support them.

> 10. Dopp: “IRV entrenches the two-major-political party system …”
>
> IRV neither "entrenches" nor "overthrows" the two-party system. It  
> simply ensures no candidate wins over majority opposition.

IRV may not elect a candidate that wins any other candidate by  
majority. Saying that it "ensures no candidate wins over majority  
opposition" twists the facts a bit too much. Not measuring the  
majority opinion in the counting process does not give the right to  
say that it doesn't exist.

IRV favours large parties with lots of first place support and does  
not favour candidates with limited number of first place support but  
that may however have lots of second and later place support. This to  
some extent maintains the two-party system.

> Relating to multi-party representation, any winner-take-all, single  
> seat election method tends towards two dominant parties, at least  
> in any given geographic area.

Good information. Having single seat districts has a major impact on  
the outcome.

> To allow for multiple parties to regularly win office,  
> jurisdictions should adopt a form of proportional representation in  
> which candidates will be able to win office with less than 50% of  
> the vote.

Fairvote is interested in seeking even better methods and is  
obviously not stuck to stubbornly promoting IRV only. Maybe Fairvote  
understands also the limitations of IRV (and maybe sees it as an  
intermediate step).

> 11. Dopp: "Could deliver unreasonable outcomes…."
>
> Unreasonable outcomes are less likely with IRV than with any other  
> single-seat voting method in use today.

This statement is too strong. Term "unreasonable" is of course also  
not well defined (IRV supporters e.g. often seem to think that  
extensive first place support is a requirement while others think  
differently).

> 12. Dopp: “Not all ballots are treated equally…”
>
> This charge reveals a lack of understanding of how IRV works.

Maybe one could say something weaker like that all preferences  
expressed in the ballots are not "treated equally" or taken into  
account when determining the winner.

> 14. Dopp: “Increases the potential for undetectable vote fraud and  
> erroneous vote counts…"
>
> Actually, just the opposite is true,

I wouldn't claim that IRV makes fraud/error detecting generally  
easier. (Individual IRV users may have good practices though.)

Juho


On Jun 12, 2008, at 6:50 , Greg wrote:

> The FairVote document that debunks Dopp's claims is available at:
>   http://www.fairvote.org/dopp
>
> Greg
>
>
>> Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 09:19:36 -0700 (PDT)
>> From: Chris Benham <cbenhamau at yahoo.com.au>
>> Subject: Re: [Election-Methods] I Need Reviews of "Ten Reasons to
>>        Oppose IRV"
>> To: EM <election-methods at lists.electorama.com>
>> Message-ID: <809165.4730.qm at web56205.mail.re3.yahoo.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
>>
>> Kathy Dopp has persisted in producing a paper on IRV. She concludes:
>>
>> "Ranked choice (RCV) / instant runoff voting (IRV) is not worthy of
>> consideration and its use should be avoided."
>>
>> Chris Benham
>> The eight page report "15 Flaws and 3 Benefits of Instant Runoff or
>> Ranked Choice Voting" explains the flaws and benefits of instant
>> runoff voting in detail plus provides appendices with examples of how
>> RCV/IRV violates fairness principles, plus provides three pages of
>> endnotes of references and additional facts.
>>
>> The full report is available on-line at
>> http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/RCV-IRV/ 
>> InstantRunoffVotingFlaws.pdf
>>
>> This release is also posted online at
>> http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/RCV-IRV/FlawsIRV- 
>> PressRelease.pdf
>> or at http://kathydopp.com/serendipity/
>>
>>
>>
>>      Get the name you always wanted with the new y7mail email  
>> address.
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> ----
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