[Election-Methods] Fwd: [LWVTopics] IRV Voting

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 07:10 PM 5/11/2008, raphfrk at netscape.net wrote:
>Also, IRV suffers from centre squeeze.  This means that a compromise
>candidate who would be mid-way between the 2 main contenders cannot
>win.

I can't emphasize enough how important it is, for political purposes, 
to point out that this criticism of IRV is given by Robert's Rules of 
Order. FairVote has selectively quoted certain phrases from Robert's 
Rules of Order, Newly Revised (10th edition) to make it look like 
Robert's Rules "recommends" "IRV."

The short of it is that this is a highly deceptive claim, based on 
selective quotation and spin.

Here is what is *actually* in Robert's Rules. My excerpts, of course, 
but I'll try to be fair and reasonably complete.

First of all, for background:

on page 402, there is a description of what is included in the basis 
for "majority," and the principle is given: "... a choice has no 
mandate from the voting body unless approval is expressed by more 
than half of those entitled to vote and registering any evidence of 
having some opinion."

and then to the section on preferential voting:

***begin quote***

[... p 411 ...]
The term *preferential voting* refers to any of a number of voting 
methods by which, on a single ballot when there are more than two 
possible choices, the second or less-preferred choices of voters can 
then be taken into account if no candidate or proposition attains a 
majority. While it is more complicated than other methods of voting 
in common use and is not a substitute for the normal procedure of 
repeated balloting until a majorit yis obtained, preferential voting 
is especially useful and fair in an election by mail if it is 
impractical to take more than one ballot. In such cases it makes 
possible a more representative result than under a rule that a 
plurality shall elect. It can be used only if expressly authorized in 
the bylaws.

Preferential voting has many variations. One method is described 
here, by way of illustration. [and then sequential elimination, i.e., 
"IRV," is described, using a ballot where voters, for each candidate, 
mark a numeral indicating preference order.]

[... the process is continued until] one pile contains more than half 
of the ballots, the result being thereby determined. [...] If a 
ballot having one or more names not marked with any numeral comes up 
for placement at any state of the counting and all of its marked 
names have been eliminated, it should not be placed in any pile, but 
should be set aside. [...]

[...] When this or any other system of preferential voting is to be 
used ... the members must be thoroughly instructed as to how to mark 
the ballot, and should have sufficient understanding of the counting 
process to enable them to have confidence in the method. Sometimes, 
for instance, voters decline to indicate a second or other choice, 
mistakenly believing that such a course increases the chances of 
their first choice. In fact, it may prevent any candidate from 
receiving a majority and require the voting to be repeated. The 
persons selected as tellers must perform their work with particular care.

The system of preferential voting just described should not be used 
in cases where it is possible to folow the normal procedure of 
repeated balloting until one candidate or proposition attains a 
majority. Although this type of preferential voting is preferable to 
an election by plurality, it affords less freedom of choice than 
repeated balloting, because it denies voters the opportunity of 
basing their second or lesser choices on the results of earlier 
ballots, and because the candidate or proposition in last place is 
automatically eliminated and may thus be prevented from becoming a 
compromise choice.

***end quote**

Is this a "recommendation" of "IRV." No. Not as IRV is proposed and 
used. First of all, it actually recommends "preferential voting," and 
notes that there are many forms. It *criticizes* sequential 
elimination because of what is commonly called "Center Squeeze," the 
failure to find a "compromise choice." However, IRV in actual use is 
*worse* than what Robert's Rules describes, because what they 
describe still requires the candidate to attain a majority. A true 
majority, a majority of valid ballots cast expressing a legal choice. 
IRV as implemented, as in San Francisco, *removed* the requirement 
for majority choice from the law, while the voter information 
pamphlet still made the claim about candidates still being required 
to attain a majority. It was bait-and-switch.

Do all forms of preferential voting suffer from Center Squeeze? No. 
Bucklin, among others, does not. Bucklin is also much easier to count 
(the difficulty of counting IRV is noted by Robert's Rules).

Now, IRV promoters have been faced with these arguments before. On 
Wikipedia, for the instant-runoff voting article, when I pointed out 
that the Robert's Rules form did require a majority still, IRV 
advocates claimed that this was preposterous. Among them was Terrill 
Bouricius, who, as a Vermont legislator, introduced IRV legislation. 
Now, the Vermont constitution requires a majority vote or the 
election of the governor passes for resolution to the State 
Legislature for resolution by secret ballot. And that legislation 
specifically included provisions relevant to that, acknowledging that 
the final-round majority in the method was not necessarily a legal 
majority. So Bouricius knew, or should have known, that the IRV 
"majority" wasn't.

Remarkably, it was only the other day that I noticed that Robert's 
Rules explicitly says that. It's quoted above at the end. The lack of 
a majority of voters indicating a single choice causes the election 
to fail. So "truncating," as it is called, is essentially a No vote 
on all remaining candidates, thus preserving the majoritarian quality 
of the method. Without that, it becomes a plurality method, the 
winner isn't required to have the approval of a majority of voters.

Now, a very obvious question arises: if Robert's Rules isn't 
"recommending" IRV, why did they describe it? Well, I think it likely 
that the editors had some debates over this. But Robert's Rules is 
descriptive, not exactly prescriptive. It is limited to describing 
actual, common parliamentary practice. No other preferential voting 
method is currently in sufficient use to justify its mention in the 
Rules. They took pains to make it clear that IRV isn't the only 
possibility, and to state, more than once, that they don't actually 
recommend this, it's simply a lesser evil, and they likewise describe 
two major shortcomings: complexity and Center Squeeze. Faint praise, indeed.

It's a really good example of how spin doctors work. It was done so 
well that I was fooled for at least a year. I had gone to the 
FairVote web site and read their excerpt. Yes, it recommends IRV, I 
thought, darn it! They must not have been familiar with election 
methods. But, later, working on the IRV article for Wikipedia, as it 
became obvious that the article was fully of precisely-crafted spin, 
I started to re-examine everything. They went to great lengths to 
describe "majority" in certain very precise ways that avoided 
confronting the question of exhausted ballots, and changes that made 
the text more accurate, disclosing the exceptions, were removed as 
being "confusing," and "nit-picking detail." And they were willing to 
edit war, risking being blocked from editing, to maintain this 
language. Obviously it was very important to them. So I revisited the 
text. Everything that was above is there. But the context is provided 
by them, "Robert's Rules of Order recommends IRV." And so it is easy 
to overlook the little details.

Remember the saying, "The devil is in the details." By neglecting 
"details," critical description can be turned into a 
"recommendation." A system that requires a majority for election can 
be turned into one which does not, but which is still proposed to 
replace a system which does (top two runoff, at least usually), 
without the difference ever being mentioned.

IRV does not, apparently from actual election results, perform like 
top-two runoff. So any jurisdiction contemplating replacing top-two 
runoff with IRV should look closely at how IRV performs in actual 
use. FairVote is not about to provide the analysis, except for what 
favors their agenda, such as poll results (themselves presented with 
careful selection). It avoids runoffs, that's true. But at the cost 
of the original requirement, and the results, in every recent case, 
match the first round plurality result, without exception, but 
generally without finding an actual majority. In some cases that 
majority may, in fact, exist, but the counting method conceals the 
votes. Other preferential voting methods, such as the once-popular 
Bucklin, don't have this flaw, Bucklin does not discard any votes, it 
brings them in in rounds, so all first preference votes are counted, 
and then if there is no first preference majority, all second 
preference votes are added in. None are taken out. FairVote describes 
Bucklin has having only two rounds, but the form that we have a very 
good description of, that in Duluth, was a three round system, with 
unrestricted voting in the third round. (This is actually a prior use 
of Approval Voting, limited to the third round.)