[EM] IRV vs Plurality (back to the pile count controversy)

[James Gilmour]

Kathy Dopp  > Sent: Friday, January 22, 2010 4:54 PM
> James, you are using a straw man argument with me, setting up 
> a false premise that I said something I never did, 

Kathy, I was not setting up any straw man argument with you or anyone else.  I simply stated what a "preference profile" is and the
possible numbers of such profiles.  Anything else is not a "preference profile" and is irrelevant.

Of course, no-one in their right mind (or not under legal restraint) would do a manual count of STV ballots by sorting to preference
profiles.  It is completely unnecessary and would extend time taken for the count very greatly.  Sorting STV ballots to preference
profiles makes sense only in computerised counting.


> To require, as you suggest that all election be administered 
> in a way that allows all voters to fully rank all candidates 
> may sounds nice

No, Kathy it is not something that "sounds nice"  -  it is an essential requirement for the proper implementation of democratic
choice.  Any artificiality imposed constraint on that is a restriction of that democratic choice.  But I am aware that factors of
"administrative convenience" outweigh such considerations in some jurisdictions  -  it must be so, else they would never be
tolerated.


> and would eliminate one of the problems with 
> IRV, but with so many election contests on one ballot here in 
> the US, it would be costly and possibly impractical unless 
> you insist on using inauditable, easily hacked, electronic 
> ballots and touchscreen devices rather than auditable voter 
> marked paper ballots.

No, Kathy, here in the UK we do NOT use any "easily hacked, electronic ballots and touchscreen devices".  We use good old-fashioned
paper ballots which we mark with a stubby pencil secured to the polling booth by a short length of string!  It is very old
technology, but it works, and it is extremely flexible in that this voting method (paper and pencil) can be adapted to any voting
system (and we use five different voting systems for public elections in Scotland).  And of course, where electronic counting is
employed, we always have the original paper ballots should anyone demand an audit.


> As I said earlier, if paper ballots are required, the length 
> of the paper ballot must be unlimited if the number of 
> candidates who can run for office is unlimited and you want 
> voters to be able to fully rank (not that most voters would want to.)

Length has not been a problem.


> Dealing with practical election administration issues seem to 
> be very low down on the totem pole for most electoral methods 
> people it seems.

I cannot speak for any other EM member, but practical election administration is an important priority for me, especially as I am
the returning officer for some elections and the supervising officer for some others.


<CUT>

> Sorting ballots into 
> piles and confusing subpiles only works for IRV and does not 
> work for STV, except if there are no transferrable votes or 
> you want to cut up pieces of ballots or xerox copies of 
> ballots (what a confusing mess that would be.)

If by "STV" you mean STV-PR (a multi-seat election), this statement is nonsense.  IF you are sorting ballots into unique preference
profiles, that is as easily done for STV-PR as it is for IRV.  Of course, as I have already said, it makes no sense to do that in a
manual count of any IRV or STV-PR election.  And when it comes to the practical transfer of ballots in an STV-PR election there is
no problem at all, whether you are dealing with whole vote transfers on an exclusion or fractional transfers of a surplus.


> > The practicalities of election administration are extremely important 
> > and as a returning officer for some elections, I am well aware of 
> > that.  But electoral administration must not be allowed to put 
> > artificial or "convenient" limitations on the democratic process.
> 
> 
> Except in the case of such methods as IRV when the method is 
> not only wholly inconvenient and costly and virtually 
> impossible to hand count understandably and quickly and is 
> also unfair and produces awful outcomes.

IRV and STV-PR are quite easy to count by hand and the procedures and the outcomes are widely understood.  They have been doing just
that in Ireland and Malta since 1920, and in Northern Ireland again since 1973.  The multi-seat count may take longer than one
plurality count, but that one multi-seat count replaces several plurality counts.  And of course, there is no comparison at all in
what is achieved in terms of fair and democratic representation of the voters  -  which should always be the deciding factor.



> A simpler method to administer is always preferable, other 
> things being equal, to a complex costly method such as IRV, 

But of course, other thing are not equal.  And there are higher priorities in achieving democratic representation than cost and
complexity.


> but IRV does not even provide any reason to use it since it 
> fails more fairness criteria than plurality, takes us 
> backwards in election fairness and voter rights, etc. as well 
> as eviscerating election transparency for the common person 
> who doesn't use spreadsheets, etc.

This is a reiteration of your personal value judgements on the outcomes of different voting systems.


> The UK is much smaller than the US. The UK has far fewer 
> issues and contests on each ballot than the US. The UK has 
> one central government that administers elections, unlike the 
> US which has 50 separate states, etc. etc. Need I go on?

Yes, Kathy, the UK is smaller than the USA, but no, Kathy, we do not have one central government that administers all public
elections.  We do not have the degree of devolution and diversity encountered in the USA, but we do not operate one centralised
system for electoral administration.  While I would not advocate centralised control of the election methods and voting systems in
the USA, from some of the public reports I have seen, I would venture to suggest that some of the current diversity of practice in
the USA is highly undesirable. 

James


No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com 
Version: 9.0.730 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2637 - Release Date: 01/21/10 19:34:00