[EM] Burlington 2009 mayor race (instant runoff) -- exhibited a ton of pathologies

[Kathy Dopp]

> Date: Sun, 15 Mar 2009 20:10:38 -0400
> From: Warren Smith <warren.wds at gmail.com>
> Subject: [EM] Burlington 2009 mayor race (instant runoff) -- exhibited

> Web page about Burlington's 2009 mayor race:
>
> http://rangevoting.org/Burlington.html
>
> and this race is an excellent example of all the numerous things that
> can go wrong if instant runoff voting (IRV) is used.
> (As usual, the IRV advocates branded it a "great success.")
> It also is a good example illustrating what's wrong with plain-plurality voting.
>


Great Job Warren.  Thanks for this significant contribution towards
rebutting some of the commonly made false claims made by IRV
proponents.

However, you stretch the truth when you claim that this example
illustrates what's wrong with plurality voting because you assume that
in a plurality election, all the voters who put the Democratic
candidate second, would not have put the Democratic candidate first in
the lack of misleading IRV system that fooled them into thinking that
the spoiler effect was solved, and who probably did not understand
that their first choice could prevent any of their second choice votes
from ever being counted, even when their first choice loses.

Back to the positive, I thought you did a fantastic job explaining in
easy-to-understand terms why some large groups of voters have every
right to dislike the "pathological" results of Burlington's IRV
elections.

Thanks for making the effort.

Cheers,

Kathy