[EM] Election-Methods Digest, Vol 53, Issue 44

[Kevin Venzke]

Hi Greg,

--- En date de : Ven 21.11.08, Greg Dennis <gdennis at mit.edu> a écrit :
> A fair point. I don't see it in practice, though. In
> the recent San
> Francisco IRV elections, for example, there were three open
> seats
> (incumbents weren't running). Two of the seats saw 9
> candidates
> running, one saw 7. It seems that everyone and their
> brother is
> throwing their hat in the ring of these IRV races, with no
> sign that
> centrists are being deterred by the voting method. I think
> the reason
> that centrists aren't deterred is that they have
> nothing to lose --
> the entry of a centrist with weak core support can't
> throw the
> election to a less preferred candidate under IRV. The worst
> that can
> happen is they're eliminated in an early round and then
> the tallying
> carries on as it would have had they not entered the race.
> With
> plurality, we see a very obvious nomination incentive, with
> potential
> spoiler candidates publicly and explicitly dropping out of
> races,
> because of the impact they may have. I've yet to see or
> hear of
> anything comparable in an IRV race.

Well, it seems to me there is a conflict in saying that centrists are not
deterred from running and yet IRV is not exhibiting the center squeeze
effect or violating Condorcet. It seems to me that these candidates either
shouldn't really be called centrists, or else they are centrists but don't
have the resources necessary to become visible, viable candidates (since
how are you going to get donations etc. if we can already say that you
won't win).

There may be something about San Francisco elections that I'm not aware 
of.

Kevin Venzke