[EM] IRV proponents figure out how to make IRV precinct-summable

Kathy Dopp kathy.dopp at gmail.com
Mon Mar 23 12:25:13 PDT 2009


> Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 15:46:44 +0100
> From: Kristofer Munsterhjelm <km-elmet at broadpark.no>
> Subject: Re: [EM] IRV proponents figure out how to make IRV
>        precinct-summable

> Also, IRV, in the general case, is not summable. However, what we're talking about is the contingent vote, an "instant top-two runoff", which is what the IRV proponents figured out how to make precinct summable (or thought they had figured out how to make precinct summable).

No. It was my mistake to misnomer the Subject on my email that started
this thread.

The NC folks did not find a way to make IRV precinct-summable, they
merely found a way to count round #2 in the polling locations *after*
they'd waited there for however long it takes to count round #1 at the
central office. Of course round #1 of IRV is always precinct-summable,
but no other round ever is.

I've corrected and added to my original email post at this blog entry:
http://kathydopp.com/serendipity/index.php?/archives/41-North-Carolina-develops-method-to-count-IRV-with-precinct-opti-scanners.html

The only way to make IRV precinct-summable would be to report all the
sums for each permutation of possible ballot orderings, including
partial orderings, but that is a HUGE number of sums, usually more
sums than the total number of voters voting in any precinct whenever
there are a large number of candidates.  I've given the formula for
how to calculate how many sums would have to be reported to make IRV
precinct-summable in my paper "The 18 Flaws and 4 Benefits of IRV..."
posted here:

http://electionmathematics.org/ucvAnalysis/US/RCV-IRV/InstantRunoffVotingFlaws.pdf

Sorry bout the mixup. We should change the Subject of this thread to
correct the misunderstanding I began.

Cheers,

Kathy



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