[EM] IRV vs Plurality (Dave Ketchum)

[Kathy Dopp]

On Sat, Jan 16, 2010 at 4:17 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
<abd at lomaxdesign.com> wrote:
> It may depends on what office(s) are being elected. States are free,
> supposedly, to select their electors by any method they choose. STV is
> actually a decent method for that. This election would be state-wide. But it
> ain't gonna happen unless some negotations and arrangements are successful.
> There is a way to get from here to there, but it must address the problem
> that the majority party in each state will see that the all-or-nothing
> assignment of electors state by state helps it, and that this is somewhat
> balanced and somewhat fair when disparity, the loss of representation in the
> electoral college by all-or-nothing, balances out.
>
> So a Democratic state, for example, if it decides to generously divide up
> its electors fairly, will quite accurately perceive that it will be helping
> the Republican to win, and perhaps unfairly, if there is no reciprocation.
> There is a way around this through conditional implementations that only
> divide the electors when this actually will produce a fair result based on
> overall proportional representation in the electoral college. Otherwise it
> reverts to all-or-nothing, or something in between.

I love that idea Abd ul. It is a far better idea than trying to create
a nationwide popular vote compact IMO for exactly the reasoning you
mention below and the incredible legal finagling that could result
from a close popular vote in all 50 states given the completely
different election systems each state uses.  I wish the creators of
the popular vote compact (that IMO will never pass in enough states)
had taken that approach instead, which I would think also has a better
political chance of being endorsed in enough states.

>
> I strongly dislike basing the national result on direct popular vote, for
> two reasons, one of which is the election integrity problem.
>
> Ideally, the electoral college would return to its intended role, where
> electors could cast their votes *independently,* and were elected based on
> the trust of the public in them *personally*. If you want to only vote for a
> Green elector, fine. But let your elector cast his or her vote in the
> College according to what will produce the best result in the end, as seen
> by that person. Choose well.
>
> Part of the problem with the present system is that we are electing
> rubber-stamps, then we are surprised when rubber-stamp elections don't go
> well!
>

Today only NE and I think NB have allocated their electors
proportionally to the vote in their states.



-- 

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