[EM] IRV vs Plurality

[Jonathan Lundell]

On Jan 14, 2010, at 9:34 AM, robert bristow-johnson wrote:

> do you mean their 2nd choice is not counted because their first choice loses in the final round?  that goes without saying, but that's the dumb IRV rules.  that is an *arbitrary* threshold imposed upon IRV, that 1st choices count and *anything* below the 1st choice makes *no* difference until it gets bumped off and every other choice gets bumped up.
> …
> but then, one might ask, by what reasonable measure would we eliminate Wright or Kiss over Montroll?  i heard one guy suggest that they should count *both* 1st and 2nd choices for evaluating which candidate is the weakest and eliminated.  but that's just another made-up threshold that someone pulled out of their butt. 

Looking only at the current top rank is necessary to preserve later-no-harm. You may not like it, but it's not arbitrary.