[EM] IRV and Brown vs. Smallwood

[Terry Bouricius]

Markus,

Do you have any example of FairVote suggesting Condorcet methods might be 
unconstitutional? I have worked with FairVote for many years, and I don't 
think they ever made that argument, or that Later-No-Harm failure makes 
any method unconstitutional (the widely used block plurality method fails 
L-N-H). I would certainly support a referendum for adopting Condorcet 
Voting compared to plurality. A nutshell summary of FairVote's position, I 
believe, would be that PR is the most significant reform, but that for 
single-seat elections, Condorcet is a theoretically much better method 
than Plurality, Bucklin or Approval, but like Range Voting, Condorcet has 
characteristics that make it unappealing to most Americans, and it 
probably has no chance of being adopted for governmental elections in the 
U.S., and that the best single-seat reform that has any realistic chance 
of adoption is IRV.

Terry Bouricius

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Markus Schulze" <markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de>
To: <election-methods at electorama.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 17, 2009 9:47 PM
Subject: Re: [EM] IRV and Brown vs. Smallwood


Hallo,

FairVote always argued that Brown vs. Smallwood
declared Bucklin unconstitutional because of
its violation of later-no-harm. FairVote always
claimed that, therefore, also Condorcet methods
were unconstitutional.

However, the memorandum of the district court
doesn't agree to this interpretation of Brown
vs. Smallwood. This means that this memorandum
is a progress at least in so far as FairVote
cannot use Brown vs. Smallwood anymore as an
argument against Condorcet methods.

Markus Schulze


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