[EM] why can't we have the Ranked Ballot (even IRV) for primaries?

[Dave Ketchum]

This shows that, for a few elections, we need extra capability.

Many of these voters should be ready to learn ranked choice voting in  
order to vote for more than one and show preference they see as to  
Good over Soso.

We are hopefully agreeing that we need better counting than IRV  
provides.

Which leads us to Condorcet, which cares not the election's purpose -  
primary here.

For just one oddity election such as this ballots could be laid out  
manually.  Counting could also be manual, counting how many of each  
pattern voted.

I would still do an N*N matrix but, assuming 22 voted A>B that would  
mean adding 22 to each of the proper entries for A & B, rather than  
adding ones for each such ballot.

"Median" does not excite me here - this gives all the voters a chance  
to be heard as they express themselves in detail, so why do we not  
declare the results to be our found median?

When we are plotting how to do general elections the major parties  
plot for advantages - here there could be more readiness to try for  
best.

Dave Ketchum
.
On Aug 25, 2010, at 4:41 PM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:

> robert bristow-johnson wrote:
>> we have a legitimate cliff-hanger here in Vermont with the Democrat  
>> gubernatorial primary.
>> 5 candidates, 4 that were all viable, 3 that are within 1% and the  
>> top 2 that are within 0.1%.
>> i wonder how close this would have been if there was something  
>> better than FPTP.
>> it was a fascinating experience being a fly on the wall at one of  
>> the campaigns.
>> now to pull on my Doug Racine T-shirt and go to the "unity rally".
>
> Ideally (that is notwithstanding internal bureaucracy and similar  
> effects), a party would adopt a ranked voting method if it would  
> benefit them. If the "outer" ballot is also ranked and picks the  
> median voter's candidate, then that would happen if the old voting  
> method elects candidates that are further away from the median voter  
> (of the electorate in general) than is the case for the new voting  
> method.
>
> However, there are a number of caveats in the real world. First, the  
> outer method does not have that quality, as it's not Condorcet (nor  
> even ranked any more). Second, we can't just throw away the "similar  
> effects" mentioned above, as they may be significant. Third, the  
> primary is not open and so even if a good ranked method were used,  
> it would elect the candidate closest to the party's median, not that  
> of the electorate in general.
>
> As for why the parties don't use a ranked ballot, they may not even  
> know about it. Still, one may wonder...
> ----