[EM] IRV vs Plurality (Dave Ketchum)

[Kathy Dopp]

On Sat, Jan 16, 2010 at 2:06 AM, robert bristow-johnson
<rbj at audioimagination.com> wrote:
>
> On Jan 15, 2010, at 11:34 PM, Jonathan Lundell wrote:
>
>> On Jan 15, 2010, at 7:51 PM, Kathy Dopp wrote:
>>
>>> Imagine sending all your ballots nationwide to DC for manual counting
>>> to check the outcome of a Presidential election. We'll simply let the
>>> GW administration, for instance, count the results in his own IRV
>>> election!
>>
>> That's something of a non sequitur. Anyone with all the ballot files
>> (every state, for example, or anyone else) could do the count.
>
> and, in fact, it can be decentralized to the extent it is now.  each state
> could have their central place, and in turn, each county, each precinct.
> the entire tree could be a public record on the internet that has links to
> child nodes or parent node.  with 3 credible candidates there are 9 piles to
> have to maintain.  each precinct sorts the ballots into one of 9 piles and
> counts it and puts the 9 numbers up in this public place on the web.
>  everyone can check their own node to see that it isn't misreported.  i do
> not see why, physically, it would be more vulnerable to attack by the
> government in power that what is presently the case.  it's a factor of 9/2
> more numbers to keep secure with that ranked ballot.

I was talking about IRV voting. Where do you get "9" piles from?  (9
would be the number of Condorcet tallies for 3 candidates, *not* the
number of ballot piles for either Condorcet - which does not require
ballot sorting to hand count - and *not* the number of ballot piles
for IRV voting.

If you want to make IRV precinct-summable for 3 candidates, it
requires 3*2+3*2+3 = 15 separate tallies.

To count IRV by sorting piles of ballots requires  far fewer piles
than 9 but also to do decentralized as you suggest would require
everyone in the entire country in all precincts sitting around waiting
for all the late-counted ballots to be ready and waiting for the total
results to be tabulated centrally somewhere so they could sort the
ballots for the next round - totally undoable practically.

Of course the number of tallies to make IRV/STV precinct-summable
grows exponentially as the number of candidates grows and is equal to
more than the total number of voters who vote in each precinct most of
the time with a larger number of candidates.

>
> each state, each little government would be responsible to confirm their
> precinct totals on the map and everybody gets to look at it.  what's
> particularly insecure about that?

I don't think you yet understand the counting process for IRV/STV. Why
not create a set of 200 ballots for one precinct with a mixture of all
15 unique ballot combinations on them for three candidates and try
counting them so you can fully understand the process.

Cheers
Kathy
>
> --
>
> r b-j                  rbj at audioimagination.com
>
> "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
>
>
>
>
>



-- 

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