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

[Jonathan Lundell]

On Nov 26, 2008, at 8:30 AM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:

>> Personally, I don't think that any available single-winner method,  
>> IRV
>> not excepted, is particularly "great", though I prefer ranked-ordinal
>> methods to FPTP or TTR.
>
> It's almost certainly true that TTR has generally better results  
> than IRV. Essentially, when needed, two ballots are better than one.  
> Three would be better than two! Democratic process skips all this  
> crap and iterates binary decisions, with a majority requirement to  
> make any decision. It continues to iterate until a majority is  
> found, or a majority decides to adjourn....
>
> None of the Above is always on the ballot with true democratic  
> elections, and doesn't have to be a named candidate. With Approval,  
> for example, just write it in! Lizard People would have been fine.

This (TTR vs IRV) is a matter that we can simply disagree on. I'd set  
three-rank IRV aside as an unfortunate but hopefully temporary  
response to voting equipment limitations. My problem with TTR is that  
it's almost as bad at encouraging strategic voting as FPTP is. Better,  
yes, but not good. Approval is also a strategy game that I'd rather  
not play; sure, I can imagine elections in which Approval is easy and  
relatively non-strategic, but it's also easy to imagine otherwise.

I confess that I'm partial to the iterative process, at least under  
the right circumstances. US political parties have used it in the  
past, and it's suitable to an open-ended convention setting. The US  
Greens used a kind of "live IRV" in their 2004 convention, with  
multiple vote-for-one rounds with elimination and/or withdrawal  
between rounds. But there are lots of reasons that we don't want an  
open-ended process for public elections, or even a process (like  
GPUS-2004) that guarantees eventual termination, but with an uncertain  
number of rounds. I prefer the IRV compromise to TTR or Approval.

BTW, most of the list will probably be aware that the second round of  
the Georgia (US) TTR senatorial election will be held next Tuesday.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_election_in_Georgia,_2008