[EM] IRV vs Plurality

[Kathy Dopp]

On Mon, Jan 11, 2010 at 7:10 PM, Dave Ketchum <davek at clarityconnect.com> wrote:
> On Jan 11, 2010, at 4:16 PM, robert bristow-johnson wrote:
>>
>> On Jan 11, 2010, at 1:19 PM, Dave Ketchum wrote:
>>>
>>> On Jan 11, 2010, at 11:45 AM, robert bristow-johnson wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On Jan 11, 2010, at 8:54 AM, Kathy Dopp wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> ...
>>>>> Plurality is far better than IRV for many many reasons including:
>>>>>
>>>>> 1. preserves the right to cast a vote that always positively affects
>>>>> the chances of winning of the candidate one votes for

Everyone seems to have missed understanding my point which is that IRV
is nonmonotonic, plurality is not.  In any one election, the voter in
plurality retains the right to know which candidate his vote helps. In
IRV it's anyone's guess whether a vote will help or hurt a favorite
candidate's chances of winning. For instance in Aspen CO's most recent
IRV election, if 75 *fewer* voters had voted for one candidate that
candidate would have won.  That probably happens a lot in IRV but IRV
is so darn complex to count and analyze after elections that no one
has time or data to analyze all IRV/STV election vagaries.


>>>>> 2. allows all voters the right to participate in the final counting
>>>>> round in the case of top two runoff or primary/general elections
>>>>
>>>> but IRV does that in an instantaneous way UNLESS some voter changes

FALSE statement by ?? IRV always removes voters involuntarily from the
final counting round, unlike plurality voting where all registered
voters are allowed to participate. Voters are involuntarily excluded
whenever:

1. they fail to fully rank all candidates and their choices don't make
it to the final round, or

2. they rank all candidates possible to rank on the ballot, say 3, but
there are more than 4 candidates in the contest with supporters.

The only way IRV voters get to participate in the final counting round
is if they vote for one of the candidates that happens to survive to
the final round and since sometimes IRV eliminates the most popular
candidate like it did in Burlington, that can be difficult to
determine.

>>>>> 3. preserves voters' right to understandably verify the election
>>>>> outcomes because the counting is simple enough for them to do,
>>>>> precinct summable
>>>>
>>>> so does Condorcet.

Yes. Of course. IRV/STV really are the only voting methods that are
worse than plurality voting, that I have heard anyone promoting.
Reminds me of the "big improvement" of DRE paperless e-ballot voting
which was pushed for by some of the same players who are now pushing
for IRV, including Common Cause, LWV groups, Fairytale Vote, etc.

>>>
>>> And Condorcet gives a more accurate view since the ballots more
>>> completely state voters desires and all that they say gets counted.

Yes.

>>>>> 4. preserves the right for local precinct control of the counts or in
>>>>> the case of election contests that cross county lines, local county
>>>>> control of the counting process
>>>>
>>>> so does Condorcet.    i like precinct summable too, but it isn't the
>>>> end-all requirement for an honest election.

Yes. I agree. Imagine counting all ballots in DC and carting all
ballots to Washington DC to check the accuracy of the tallies to elect
the President using IRV! Truly an insane picture.

>>>>
>>>>> 5. is far less costly than the IRV counting process
>>>>
>>>> not in Burlington.  once the infrastructure was set up (the ballot
>>>> scanning machines didn't have to be changed at all, the difference is that
>>>> the precinct results (that had a record for how each ballot looked) were
>>>> transferred to city hall and a computer did the rest.  because of FoI laws,
>>>> this record is available for public scrutiny and has been scrutinized.

I don't know about that and am doubtful about the veracity of what you
say as it does not seem logical or expected. We can agree to disagree
for now as I admittedly don't have time to investigate fully.

>>>
>>> Topic seems to be that a second look at a ballot is required in IRV after
>>> it is determined that the top rank lost.  In Condorcet all the looking is
>>> done in one pass.

Yes. I totally agree that Condorcet is far superior to IRV/STV and
would solve the spoiler problem, unlike IRV/STV.

IRV/STV is fundamentally unfair because a large group of persons whose
first choice loses, never has their 2nd choice counted, unlike some
other voters. It's a highly inequitable method.


-- 

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