[EM] IRV vs Plurality

[robert bristow-johnson]

On Jan 13, 2010, at 3:15 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:

> At 09:30 AM 1/13/2010, Terry Bouricius wrote:
>>

>> It has been argued that IRV tends to reduce negative campaigning,  
>> or makes
>> campaigns overly bland (depending on your stance), because in  
>> addition to
>> seeking first choices, candidates want to reach out to the  
>> supporters of
>> other candidates.
>
> It's been argued, for sure, but it's never been shown.

and the IRV detractors make the same claim, but tout it as a bad  
thing.  they want *real* campaigns, complete with sparks or mud or  
fecal matter flying in all directions.  not any of this namby-pamby  
love-fest bullshit.  :-)

hell, if the Tea-Baggers have their way, we'll be bringing our guns  
to the debates.

>> However, with Condorcet rules, it is possible for a
>> candidate to win in a crowded field while receiving no first  
>> choices at
>> all.
>
> Horrors! The candidate must really be bad, not even his or her  
> mother votes for him, nor, indeed, does the candidate vote for  
> himself or herself. I love these objections to voting methods that  
> are based on utterly preposterous scenarios and expected knee-jerk  
> responses to them.

i've never considered that a persuasive argument at all for IRV  
against Condorcet.  a few months ago when i was taking on Rob Richie  
about it at FairVote.org, i was calling that the "winner as warm  
bucket of spit" argument.  Andy Montroll *did* come in third, in  
terms of 1st-choice votes in 2009 (if he came in any higher, he would  
win IRV).  but his base was just fine and we don't look at it that  
way in a traditional two-person race (then why should we for multi- 
candidate races?).  a candidate's hard-core base is something we  
think about in terms of campaign strategy, getting out the vote,  
etc.  but when it comes to the election, the votes for that candidate  
from the hard-core base count *no* *more* than the votes for that  
candidate from voters who just happen to like that candidate better  
than the opponent.  why should it be any different for IRV/Condorcet?

> However, there is a legitimate point here, let's look at it.
>
>> There haven't been any real-world high-stakes elections to know for
>> certain what effect this might have, but it would seem reasonable to
>> expect candidates to avoid taking stands on controversial issues.

i don't agree with that.  a statement put forth with absolutely no  
empirical data backing it up.

> No, actually, at least not more than happens at present, where  
> candidates try to avoid opposing the positions of large blocks of  
> the public, and will attempt to present themselves differently to  
> different interest groups, whenever they think they can get away  
> with it.
>
> The problem is that if you make yourself as bland as possible, you  
> will lose your support base, those highly motivated to turn out and  
> vote for you, work for your election as a volunteer, contribute  
> funds to help you gain name recognition, etc. Fatal under most  
> realistic voting systems, including Range, IRV, etc.

i agree with that.

>> Candidates would have an incentive to campaign just using a vacant  
>> theme
>> of "I promise to listen to YOU."
>
> This is supposed to be new and only hypothetical? Sorry, Terry, I  
> vote against candidates like that, and I think I'm not alone. I'll  
> vote for a candidate whom I *actually trust* to listen to the  
> constiuents, but not one who will not disclose his or her own  
> position, because I can't trust the latter to vote intelligently  
> and honestly. I don't want a rubber stamp in a legislature or  
> office, I want someone who will not only listen, but make  
> reasonably decent decisions as well, *after* having listened.  
> Someone who won't tell me what they think, who avoids revealing  
> personal positions, that's a very big negative for me.
>
> Unfortunately, the present systems encourage exactly this.
>
>> IRV seems to strike a reasonable balance between appealing for a  
>> strong
>> core of supporters (the only requirement  in a plurality election  
>> with
>> many candidates) and also developing broad appeal as an alternate  
>> choice.
>
> The problem is that a political expedient is mistaken for a  
> desirable quality. And it's just plain bullshit. IRV favors  
> extremists, not centrists. And not *real* centrists. I'm afraid  
> that Terry is reasoning backwards. He's long worked for IRV, so he  
> is making up reasons why it's a good method, a "reasonable  
> balance," even though anyone who has studied voting systems without  
> this kind of activist bias knows that IRV performs far from  
> reasonably.

and for me, Terry, it just doesn't trump the principles:

1. If a majority (not just a mere plurality) of voters agree that  
candidate A is
better than candidate B, then candidate B should not be elected.
2. The relative merit of candidates A and B is not affected by the  
presence of a
third candidate C. If a majority (not just a mere plurality) of  
voters agree that
candidate A is better than B, whether candidate C enters the race or  
not,
indeed whether candidate C is better (in the minds of voters) than  
either
candidates A or B (or both or neither), it does not reverse the  
preference of
candidate A over candidate B. If that relative preference of  
candidate is not
affected among voters, then the relative outcome of the election  
should not
be affected (candidate B winning over candidate A). In the converse,  
this
means that by removing any loser from the race and from all ballots,  
that
this should not alter who the winner is.
3. Voters should not be called upon to do “strategic voting”. Voters  
should feel
free to simply vote their conscience and vote for the candidates they  
like
best, without worrying about whom that they think is most electable.
... As an ancillary principle, a candidate should not have to
worry about electing his/her least desirable opponent by choosing to run
against another opponent that may be more desirable.

the IRV election in Burlington in 2009 literally and inarguably  
*failed* those 3 principles which were reasons we adopted IRV in the  
first place.

it is a *great* mistake for FairVote.org to have put all of the eggs  
in the IRV basket.  they should have pushed Condorcet with the Ranked  
Ballot to begin with.  now they will have to back-pedal a bit.  and,  
especially for opponents, backpedalling costs credibility.

> To be clear, IRV does not favor serious extremists, but rather it  
> is known to foster a two-party system, where any minor parties are  
> mere appendages to a major party, and tend not to last. Terry  
> focuses, in his comment, on individual candidates and how they will  
> comport themselves, but probably most voters where parties are  
> involved vote based on general party affiliation as as strong a  
> factor as individual "promises." As has been amply explained in  
> this excellent video, http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/ 
> VotingFreeLecture.aspx, when there are two parties, they are  
> strongly motivated to position themselves near the median voter,  
> i.e., such that their range of supporters are to one side or the  
> other of the median. Candidates, in primary elections or other  
> internal party process, will be motivated to position themselves at  
> the median of the party, so, thinking of this as a linear spectrum,  
> at 25%; but this is modified by considerations of electability, so  
> the push will be up, toward the middle. Then, once nominated, they  
> will attempt to present themselves as even closer to the median.
>
> A third party attempting to rise up in the middle gets slaughtered  
> under IRV, through center squeeze, so that's next to impossible.  
> IRV is only effective, from some points of view, with respect to  
> minor parties that are more extreme than the major parties.
>
> But the whole consideration is different with nonpartisan  
> elections, where IRV is apparently a fish bicycle, producing  
> results that closely imitate Plurality. We can assume, with IRV,  
> that people will indeed vote their first preference, unless they  
> happen to actually understand the system in a center squeeze  
> situation, and center squeeze is generally a partisan phenomenon,  
> not present in nonpartisan elections as easily. So, true or not,  
> most voters will indeed vote their first preference in IRV. But for  
> reasons about which I can only speculate and infer, the plurality  
> leader in a first IRV round, in a nonpartisan election, almost  
> always wins after vote transfers are done, and the phenomenon is  
> deeper than that; when I've looked, second position also remained  
> second position.

i dunno if i agree with all that, but...

> IRV, in nonpartisan elections, and at substantial expense, imitates  
> Plurality. IRV only makes much sense in a two-party environment  
> where minor parties can only become spoilers.

... i agree with this.

> And I'm not sure that taking away the right to spoil elections is a  
> good thing! It, at least, gives some clout to a minority than can  
> command sufficient allegiance from voters to make a difference!

but i view spoilerage as a bad thing.  it thwarts the will of the  
majority of the electorate and i *always* view that as a bad thing.

>
> But there are much better ways to legitimately empower minority  
> parties.
>
>> Condorcet tips towards the broad appeal alone. Condorcet would  
>> seem to
>> encourage candidates to simply avoid alienating anybody, with  
>> little need
>> to develop strong core support.
>
> It's pure speculation, neglecting the rest of the system, and  
> assuming full ranking, which isn't at all likely in most real  
> political applications.

full ranking is no problem with 5 candidates with a write in.  no  
problem at all.


>> Thus, I wonder if Condorcet would "dumb down" campaigns to the  
>> point that
>> voters would have even less information to evaluate candidates by.
>
> Tell you what. Surely we should know before much more investment is  
> made in building fish bicycles. How about FairVote activists start  
> encouraging wider experiment with voting systems? Surely if IRV is  
> the best system, it will show up this way when there are real  
> voting examples and situations whcih can be compared. Eh? Modest  
> proposal?

hear hear!

Rob Richie, please take notice.

>> A candidate who flew below the radar, such that no voters had any  
>> negative
>> opinions of the person, just might win, even if finishing in last  
>> place in
>> terms of first choices.
>
> This presumes deep ranking. It presumes some advantage to "no  
> negative votes" without any positive votes. And it completely  
> neglects the other alternatives, only comparing full-ranked  
> Condorcet, which isn't a likely option, period. Rather, ballots  
> will *all* be truncated, necessarily, because, hey, what about  
> write-in votes? Are these to be allowed? They aren't in Australia,  
> with IRV, to my knowledge, because it would screw up the absolute  
> majority requirement for mandatory full ranking, that provides a  
> handy IRV vote for the voters next-to-the-bottom-of-the-barrel  
> candidate.

write-ins are no problem as long as they are so few that, even if one  
were to assume the same candidate is written in each time, they get  
eliminated right away.  it's only an issue if the Mr. Write-In  
actually wins.  then you have to manually read all of the write in  
ballots, determine the intent of the voter (in case of misspellings),  
pick the plurality write-in, eliminate all the other write-ins, and  
then run the tabulation again.  if Mr. Write-In wins after that, he  
wins.

>> I suspect the voters wouldn't be happy, even
>> though that was the logical result of their ballots.
>
> I'm certainly not advocating a Condorcet method, even though a  
> Condorcet winner is *usually* a better choice than one who would  
> lose in a direct contest.

how can you say "usually"?  assuming that we grant authority to the  
electorate and allow it to speak for us, how is the Condorcet winner  
(assuming one exists) *not* "better" than any other single  
candidate?  i don't get it.


> Here is the reality behind Terry's biased theorizing:

...

at this point, i am crapping out, Abd ul.  i might respond to some of  
this in another post.

--

r b-j                  rbj at audioimagination.com

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."




-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/attachments/20100114/5635c8c1/attachment-0004.htm>