[EM] Utah Republican Party Scraps IRV Voting Method

[Kathy Dopp]

On Fri, Jan 8, 2010 at 12:39 AM, robert bristow-johnson
<rbj at audioimagination.com> wrote:
> i knew that.  but what i wanted to know is if, from where you stand, it was
> one of the acceptable alternatives to IRV.  or if your ideal solution is to
> return to the "traditional" runoff or just first-past-the-pole.

I think Condorcet is acceptable but might not be the ideal solution.

>>> i'm sure as hell not convinced.  if that were the case in Burlington in
>>> 2009, a candidate would be elected on Runoff Day that was less preferred
>>> by
>>> the electorate than an identified specific candidate who was not included
>>> in
>>> the runoff.

That is exactly what happened in the last Burlington IRV mayoral
contest. Did you look at the video yet that explains that in
excrutiatingly clear terms?

Vote your conscience
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEjXBI3mMpw

Therefore IRV/STV is no better than plurality, but has extra very
serious flaws, inequities, and vagaries that plurality does not have.

>
> with that i agree with you on everything.  but, for Burlington, until we get
> Condorcet, i still think that IRV does a better job than plurality of
> solving the main problem of rewarding the compromising strategy for
> supporters of 3rd-party candidates.

False statement, as proven in Burlington where the least popular third
party is the Republicans where the Republicans were punished by voting
their true preference and would have been rewarded by ranking their
2nd choice first, exactly as in plurality elections. IRV/STV do *not*
solve the spoiler problem.

>but i do not understand why anyone
> would envision the ranked-order ballot, skip over the Condorcet concept
> (something i thought of 38 years ago in high school, 3 decades before
> reading the term "Condorcet"), and come up with the STV method.
>  specifically the arbitrary threshold that the weakest candidate to
> eliminate is the one with the fewest 1st-pick votes (that 2nd-pick count as
> well as last pick).  whose idea was that?  even in high school, i knew that
> the problem was in the difference on how people who are idealistic would
> choose their candidate in a multi-party or multi-candidate race compared to
> if there were only two candidates.  the latter is a simple problem for both
> the voter and for the election system.  no strategies to be had; vote for
> the candidate you like the most or vote for the candidate you like the
> least.  there is no reason why the latter would serve any political interest
> of the voter, so he/she may as well vote sincerely and hope for the best.
>  but once there is a credible 3rd candidate, that is no longer the case.
>  all Condorcet does (assuming there *is* a Condorcet winner) is extend the
> concept to the extra candidates.  if there is a Condorcet winner and if that
> person is always elected to office, there is no reason why the
> multi-candidate election would turn out better for anyone by trying to be
> tricky.  throwing a Condorcet election into a cycle for strategic reasons is
> pretty risky and i've never been convinced that a cycle is common at all.
>  and if a cycle does happen, Tideman ranked-pairs is fine, as far as i can
> tell.  Shulze is probably better, but hard to explain to Joe 6-pack.  but i
> can explain Condorcet to Joe 6-pack.  it's simple enough.

I believe that I agree with everything you say in the above paragraph.
 IRV/STV makes no logical sense once it is examined deeply, although I
never gave it a thought when I was younger like you did.  I haven't
studied the ways to resolve Condorcet cycles like you have.

I think trying to foist IRV/STV on the voters is going to very much
hurt the chances of implementing far better voting methods in the long
run due in large part to all the completely false claims that have
been made about IRV/STV. Who is going to believe the claims made about
other alternative voting methods after people figure out they've all
been wildly misled by  IRV/STV proponants?



Kathy Dopp

Town of Colonie, NY 12304
phone 518-952-4030
cell 518-505-0220

http://utahcountvotes.org
http://electionmathematics.org
http://kathydopp.com/serendipity/

Realities Mar Instant Runoff Voting
http://electionmathematics.org/ucvAnalysis/US/RCV-IRV/InstantRunoffVotingFlaws.pdf

Voters Have Reason to Worry
http://utahcountvotes.org/UT/UtahCountVotes-ThadHall-Response.pdf

Checking election outcome accuracy --- Post-election audit sampling
http://electionmathematics.org/em-audits/US/PEAuditSamplingMethods.pdf