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

[Juho Laatu]

--- On Wed, 26/11/08, Kristofer Munsterhjelm <km-elmet at broadpark.no> wrote:

> From: Kristofer Munsterhjelm <km-elmet at broadpark.no>
> Subject: Re: [EM] Why I think IRV isn't a serious alternative
> To: stepjak at yahoo.fr
> Cc: election-methods at electorama.com
> Date: Wednesday, 26 November, 2008, 7:53 PM
> Kevin Venzke wrote:
> > Hi Kristofer,
> > 
> > --- En date de : Mar 25.11.08, Kristofer Munsterhjelm
> <km-elmet at broadpark.no> a écrit :
> >> If IRV does elect the true Condorcet winner in all
> >> realistic elections (as opposed to the CW
> according to
> >> strategic ballots), and the Australian two-party
> (two and a
> >> third?) dominance arises from IRV, then that means
> that any
> >> Condorcet single-round single winner method will
> lead to two
> >> party dominance. That would be unfortunate. Of
> course, if it
> >> is the truth, no matter how unfortunate it is,
> it'll
> >> still be the truth; and in that case we should
> focus on
> >> multiwinner elections and PR instead.
> > 
> > Might depend on what your goals are. If you want
> multiple parties in
> > order to represent more interests, best go to PR in
> the first place.
> > I want it to be possible to have multiple viable
> "parties" in order
> > to make it more likely that the median voter can get
> what he actually
> > wants.
> > 
> > For the latter, I don't think it's clear that
> if Condorcet can't succeed,
> > nothing can.
> 
> I suppose what I want is a combination of this. The voter
> should have what he wants (which is to say, the method
> should make it more likely that the median voter can get
> what he wants), but if there is no selection among
> alternatives, that can't happen. In other words, if
> there is a two-party state and the parties don't care
> about your issues, you're out of luck; and if they say
> they care about your issues, only to turn around once
> elected, you have little chance to do anything. A duopoly is
> bad whether it's a political or economic duopoly.
> 
> So I want the people to be able to get what they want, but
> also the method to support the circumstances that ensure
> that will be true in the future as well.

I think this is one key to how also current multi-party systems could be improved. Many people "hate" the party structure since often the parties seem to be quite stagnated and deaf to the voices of reason. If this happens in a situation where the country is in a stable state without any risk of too rapid movements in the political structure, then it may make sense to encourage the political parties/structure to react better to the needs / development interests of the citizens.

Example 1. STV is a method that allows voters to influence very freely on which candidates will be elected when compared to more party oriented methods. There may be some drawbacks in complexity (especially if there are many candidates) and lack of structure (candidates are not bound to programs).

Example 2. Subgroups withing the parties allow voters to influence more on which candidates will be elected when compared to basic party oriented methods. Expressiveness is more limited than in example 1. Groupings are more clear than in example 1.

In both approaches the main expected benefit thus is that these methods are supposed to make it possible to the voters to have a say on what direction the political parties will grow (example 2 focuses more on this), or allow elected representatives to form freely any kind of coalitions (=not necessarily bound to the official and limiting party policy) when making decisions (example 1 is more radical here).

Juho



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