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

[Jonathan Lundell]

On Nov 25, 2008, at 1:07 PM, Kevin Venzke wrote:

> Hi Jonathan,
>
> --- En date de : Mar 25.11.08, Jonathan Lundell <jlundell at pobox.com>  
> a écrit :
>> It's not an unreasonable
>> conjecture that Bayrou would have gotten a larger percentage
>> of first choices (some from Sarkozy and Royal) under IRV.
>
> Could you explain this viewpoint?

The Wikipedia article doesn't give us the actual poll questions, but I  
take them to be something like "which candidate do you intend to vote  
for". So the answers need to be interpreted in the context of the  
first round of a TTR election in which polling suggests that the front- 
runners are Royal and Sarkozy. The actual results of the first round  
are consistent with that interpretation.

In that context, how many voters whose sincere first choice was some  
other candidate (including Bayrou) were strategically voting for  
Sarkozy or Royal? We simply don't know, and I merely assert that we  
can't assume that the votes in the first round of a TTR election are  
identical to the first choices in an IRV election.