[EM] IRV is best method meeting 'later no harm'?

[James Gilmour]

> > seppley at alumni.caltech.edu wrote:
> > By the way, if my understanding is correct, IRV is not Single 
> > Transferable Vote (STV), the single-winner voting method used in 
> > Australia & Ireland. IRV severely limits the number of candidates each 
> > voter can rank (to 3, if my understanding is correct) whereas STV 
> > allows (or requires) each voter to rank every candidate.  STV 
> > satisfies LNH, and many people may consider it to be somewhat better 
> > than IRV. (STV facilitates greater competition and less spoiling, 
> > especially if candidates are permitted to withdraw after  the votes are 
> > cast.)

> Kristofer Munsterhjelm  > Sent: Thursday, November 26, 2009 10:15 PM
> IRV is STV(1,n), i.e. single winner IRV. What you describe sounds like 
> FairVote's RCV, which was limited to three ranks to make it work on SF's 
> machinery.

This second statement is also wrong.  "RCV" = "Ranked Choice Voting", which is exactly the same as "STV" = "Single Transferable
Vote".  Both RCV and STV can be used in single-winner and multiple-winner elections.  It has become common in the USA (note, in the
USA) to use the term "IRV" (= "Instant Runoff Voting") when the RCV=STV voting system is applied to a single-winner election.

In none of these voting systems, under any of these names, is there any restriction on the number of preferences (= "rankings" in
the USA) that a voter can mark.  In some RCV=STV or IRV elections in the USA there have, however, been limitations imposed by the
voting METHOD that has been used.  For example, in the recent RCV elections in Minneapolis (mostly single-winner, two
multiple-winner), there was a requirement to use mark-sense ballots ("fill in the oval") which were designed to record only the
first three rankings because the certified machines that had to be used to provide the close-of-poll precinct counts could not count
more than three rankings (three columns).  This artificial (and undesirable) restriction is not implicit in the voting system, nor
is there any such restriction in the Minneapolis City Ordinance that prescribes the RCV=STV rules for these elections.

James Gilmour

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