[EM] Commentary on FairVote response on the Burlington 2009 IRV election.

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

This will necessarily be long. Perhaps someone 
who is interested could compile an executive 
summary with the most important points extracted and presented briefly.

http://www.fairvote.org/response-to-faulty-analysis-of-burlington-irv-election

The subject page is one in a series of pages 
authored by Mr. Bouricius, and my intention is to examine them all.


>
>Response to Faulty Analysis of Burlington IRV Election
>
>
>
>
>
>by 
><http://www.fairvote.org/list/author/Terry_Bouricius>Terry 
>Bouricius // Published March 17, 2009
>
>FairVote unabashedly believes that the second 
>IRV election for mayor in Burlington this month was a great success.

There are fascinating implications to this position.

>  Of course in a partisan election some people 
> will be disappointed by the result, but objectively IRV:

It is a common FairVote tactic to point to the 
face that "some people" will be dissatisfied with 
any result, and to thereby discount specific 
dissatisfaction with any single result. But, 
remember "unabashedly believes." This would seem 
to imply that any dissatisfaction with the 
Burlington result is merely a product of the 
natural disagreement over results, mere partisan sour grapes.

But, remember, FairVote previously claimed that 
the pathologies allegedly present in the 2009 
Burlington result were rare and could therefore be disregarded.

>  1) successfully prevented the election of the 
> candidate who would likely have won under 
> plurality rules, but would have lost to either 
> of the other top finishers in a runoff;

The implication is that, in the subject election, 
IRV saved the day. However, under the prior 
rules, the outcome would quite likely have been 
the same as with IRV. The prior rules were not 
"plurality," as such, but vote-for-one with a 40% 
victory requirement, with a runoff if that is not 
met, and it is highly unlikely that anyone would 
have gotten that margin in the primary, and 
therefore there would have been a runoff, and, 
assuming no major preference changes, the same 
winner. It can then be argued that IRV avoided a 
runoff, but not that it saved the city from the harm of "plurality rules."

I do not know at this writing if write-in votes 
would have been allowed in the runoff, but, if 
so, it cannot even be said with certainty that 
the result would have been any one of the top 
two. Further, people do vote a little differently 
under vote-for-one rules. (But I do assume that 
the IRV first-preference results are based on 
sincere votes; the question is what would have 
happened with the minor candidate and write-in votes.)

>  2) saw voters handle the system remarkably 
> well, with 99.99% valid ballots and equally 
> effective use of rankings in low-income wards 
> and high-income wards despite a minimal voter education effort by the city;

I have looked at some of the actual voting 
patterns, which lead me to suspect some 
misunderstandings, but that's largely not 
relevant. Once the nature of the problems with 
the 2009 election becomes widespread, we may see 
one of two things: Burlington will dump IRV, 
based on results, not on supposed "ease of use," 
or strategic voting will start to increase, to 
improve the result from the point of view of 
those who are motivated to so vote.

>  and 3) contributed to producing a campaign 
> among four serious candidates that was widely 
> praised for its substantive nature.

This is purely speculative, but Burlington is not 
a normal town. It is a three-major-party town, 
with two other parties with some strength. Even 
if the election were plurality, I'd expect more attention to substance.

>However, there are opponents of IRV who have 
>taken to the Internet to tout their "analysis" 
>of the Burlington election in hopes of derailing the expanding use of IRV.

This has been a FairVote tactic for many years: 
dismiss critics of IRV as no-hope fanatics with 
no substance, who are forced to use the 
"internet" to publish. Of course, this essay by 
Bouricius is published in a blog.

Further, criticism of IRV is dismissed as merely 
politics, and analysis, no matter how neutral and 
cogent, is dismissed as, at best, "flawed," even 
with counterarguments that are preposterous to those who understand the issues.

>  Interestingly these IRV opponents can unite in 
> criticizing IRV from opposite perspectives.

Interesting? Boring.

Some people are against IRV because they 
understand voting systems thoroughly and deeply, 
and the criticism of IRV goes back well over a 
hundred years. It did not have a good reputation 
as a single-winner system, among political scientists.

And some people are against IRV because they have 
a political agenda that it harms. For example, 
Republicans in Ann Arbor experienced an IRV 
election loss in Ann Arbor, Michigan, whereas 
previously they had been benefiting from 
vote-splitting between Democratic and Human 
Rights Party supporters there. So they scheduled 
a referendum on IRV, at a politically opportune 
time, due to HRP voters, students, being largely 
out of town, and prevailed. Naturally, they 
presented whatever arguments they could find. 
Does this make the arguments defective? Does this 
mean that anyone who criticizes IRV would be supporting the Republicans?

Not necessarily!

>  In other words, some opponents oppose IRV 
> because they feel IRV's accommodation of 
> multiple parties undercuts the two-party 
> system, while others feel IRV doesn't do enough 
> to break the two party "duopoly."

That's right. Both arguments are correct, but in 
different ways. IRV "accomomdates" multiple 
parties, but in such a way as to make it nearly 
impossible for minor parties to win. (Remember, 
in Burlington, the Progressive Party is a major 
party.) Thus IRV appears to allow minor parties, 
but, in the long run, they disappear -- or become 
appendages of a major party, a faction, so to 
speak, that doesn't run independent competing 
candidacies. There are other voting systems that 
will accurately measure support for minor 
parties, and, in particular, there is one that 
actually provides serious opportunities for minor 
parties to win, and it is the system that IRV is 
most commonly replacing, which is not Plurality, 
as Bouricius implies, but top-two runoff. To win 
under TTR, a candidate must claw his or her way 
up to second place, not all the way up to the 
top. Then, in the runoff, the candidate has a 
serious opportunity to make a case.

This is true for dark horse candidates as well as minor party candidates.

>  Some feel IRV places too much value on voters' 
> first choices, while others feel IRV places too 
> little value on first choices. And so on.

I'm not aware of any serious voting systems 
critic who believes that IRV places too little 
value on first choices. But the issue is far more 
complex than Bouricius will let on. The system 
that places more value than IRV on what are 
allegedly first choices is Plurality. But, once 
again, the real choice with IRV is most commonly 
(any exceptions) not Plurality, but top-two 
runoff. Which places about the same value on 
first choices as IRV, unless a better method were 
used for the primary election. Which is where 
real voting reform lies, not in substituting the 
highly defective canvassing method of IRV for the runoff system.

>In this post I will briefly address one faulty 
>analysis that is posted on the web site of 
>Warren Smith who advocates a novel voting system 
>called "range voting" that is not used in any public elections.

The advocacy of Smith for range voting is based 
on a deep analysis of the purposes of voting, but 
the criticism of IRV is not based on a partisan 
favoritism, and whether or not range voting is 
used in public elections are not is irrelevant. 
It's a debate tactic, more of the attempt to 
dismiss criticism as coming from mere malcontents, to be disregarded.

Is the analysis there faulty? Surely that has 
nothing to do with advocacy of other methods! 
Smith could be advocating random ballot and the 
analysis still be correct or faulty, or, indeed, 
he could be advocating IRV and the analysis could 
be either way. But, we will note, Bouricius has 
been a long-term advocate of IRV, and is 
committed in writing to *many* faulty analyses. 
Let's see if he repeats the errors of the past.

>  This site devotes a lot of space to tearing 
> down other election reform proposals (and 
> thereby, effectively propping up the status quo).

It devotes a great deal of space to election 
science. A partisan advocate may indeed consider 
that to be "tearing down other election reform 
proposals." But Warren Smith is first of all a 
mathematician and only supports Range Voting out 
of that analysis. I personally do not *advocate* 
Range Voting in the near term for public 
elections, except in the most primitive forms, 
being Approval Voting, which boils down to 
Counting All the Votes, and American Preferential 
Voting, which, being the most widely-implemented 
advanced voting system ever attempted in the 
U.S., with far more "success" than IRV, should definitely be considered!

Yes. Approval voting and American Preferential 
Voting (also known as Bucklin) are forms of Range 
Voting. They just don't look like it. Top Two 
Runoff also simulates some aspects of Range. But 
enough about other alternatives, this is about the 2009 Burlington election.

>The analysis opens with a personal attack 
>against me as an individual, which is rather odd.

Why odd? First of all, it isn't a personal 
attack, and, second, didn't Bouricius just make 
some ad-hominem arguments? I'll quote the 
relevant section of the analysis, we'll see if it is a "personal attack."

Here is the only personal material in the 
introduction to the Range Voting page:


>
>The Propaganda
>
>
>
>
>
>Instant Runoff Voting 
>(<http://rangevoting.org/rangeVirv.html>IRV) 
>advocates, especially FairVote's Terrill G. 
>Bouricius (who lives in Burlington, formerly 
>served there as alderman, also formerly served 
>as a Vermont state legislator, calls himself a 
>"political scientist," was instrumental in 
>making IRV happen in Burlington starting in 
>2006, is denoted a "senior analyst" by FairVote, 
>and in 2005 received a contract to design 
>Burlington's IRV voter education program), often 
>hail Burlington's adoption of IRV for its 
>mayoral election as a "great success." Bouricius 
>has also contended in various online posts, 
>print media, and interviews that IRV always elects a "majority winner."

Is this a personal attack? Does Bouricius really 
believe that it is, or does he imagine we can't read?

>I am used to personal attacks having served a 
>decade on the city council and another decade as 
>a state legislator as a member of the 
>Progressive Party. I have also worked as an 
>election administrator for non-profit 
>organizations when not working as an analyst for FairVote.

Would it be out of line to point out that we 
might not also be surprised to see a Progressive 
politician hail the victory of a Progressive in a 
Burlington election? Personally, I don't care 
about who wins in Burlington. I don't live there. 
I also believe that the people of Burlington have 
the right to choose their own election method, 
but I simply don't like them being misled as part of the process.

>Now turning to the defective analysis...
>
>The irony is, that this anti-IRV-biased 
><http://rangevoting.org/Burlington.html>analysis 
>is co-signed by a Vermont professor named 
>Anthony Gierzynski. Gierzynski is a strong 
>defender of plurality voting for statewide 
>elections in Vermont and a two-party system 
>where third parties don't run candidates. In 
>2002 he in fact ran for state legislature as a 
>Democrat against incumbent state legislator, the 
>Progressive Party's Bob Kiss, who later went on 
>to be the winner in Burlington's two IRV 
>elections for mayor. Professor Gierzynski does 
>not disclose this obvious source of potential 
>bias when offering analysis of Bob Kiss' 
>victories in the 2006 and 2009 Burlington elections.

In other words, he's not turning to the analysis, 
but to a consideration of the personality of the 
critic. Why am I not surpised. Should Bierzynski 
disclose his affiliations? Probably. But ... I've 
seen editorials and opinion pieces aplenty by 
FairVote activists that don't disclose their 
affiliations. It's all irrelevant, actually, 
except as a bit of political polemic. Which is 
sometimes in order. It has nothing to do with 
whether the analysis is cogent or "defective."

>The new analysis also is being cited by other 
>IRV opponents who defend current plurality 
>elections (vote-for-one-top-vote-getter) and 
>two-party system, even though it states: "IRV 
>still seems to have performed better in this 
>election than plain plurality voting, which 
>(based on top-preference votes) would have elected Wright.

This is a common and pernicious argument. If 
evidence and analysis is used for bad purposes, 
it must be bad. The comment, though, is true, so 
this isn't at all a criticism of the analysis, 
except that the implication isn't true, i.e., 
that IRV improved the situation in Burlington. It 
didn't. The previous method, which was not simple 
Plurality, would have elected Kiss as well, quite likely.

>  That would have been even worse, since Wright 
> actually was a "lose-to-all loser" among the 
> Big Three, i.e. would have lost head-to-head 
> races versus either Kiss or Montroll."

Where is the "defective analysis" promised?

>Here are just a few misconceptions in the analysis:
>
>1. The author, incorrectly states that 
>Burlington's IRV election suffered from a 
>monotonicity failure. You can read about the 
><http://www.fairvote.org/monotonicity>monotonicity 
>criterion here. In fact, no such failure occurred.

The page cited does not exist today. However, what did the authors state?

>6. Finally – and probably craziest of all – this 
>election also featured 
><http://rangevoting.org/Monotone.html>non-monotonicity. 
>If 753 of the W-voters (specifically, all 495 of 
>the W>K>M voters plus 258 of the 1289 W-only 
>voters) had instead decided to vote for K, then 
>W would have been eliminated (not M) and then M 
>would have beaten K in the final IRV round by 
>4067 to 3755. In other words, Kiss won, but if 
>753 Wright-voters had switched their vote to 
>Kiss, that would have made Kiss lose!

The "non-monotonicity" page does exist. This is the definition there:

>Monotonicity is the property of a voting system that both
>    * If somebody increases their vote for 
> candidate C (leaving the rest of their vote 
> unchanged) that should not worsen C's chances of winning the election.
>    * If somebody decreases their vote for 
> candidate B (leaving the rest of their vote 
> unchanged) that should not improve B's chances of winning the election.
Bouricius went on:

>  To understand the context, here is the 
> situation...Republican Wright was ahead in 
> first choices in the initial tally with 2951 
> votes, next came Progressive Kiss at 2,585, and 
> the Democrat, Montroll, was in third with 2063. 
> There were also two other candidates with 1,306 
> and 35 votes respectively (and some write-ins). 
> In the final runoff tally, Republican Wright 
> had 48.5% and Progressive Kiss won with 51.5% 
> (with some voters sitting out the runoff by not 
> ranking either of the finalists).
>
>What his analysis actually shows is that 
>non-monotonicity could have affected the election, but did not.

Which is what they said. This is pure semantics, 
devoid of substance. What is "monotonicity 
failure"? We know that IRV is non-monotonic, that 
is not controversial. Monotonicity failure is 
demonstrated in this case by showing that voters 
could have changed their vote in one of the ways 
described and with the associated consequence. 
The authors claimed that the election "featured 
non-monotonicity." I agree with Bouricius, in 
that the wording is not fully accurate and could 
be misleading, but, in fact, the meaning was 
explained in detail, and the explanation was 
accurate. The hypothetical votes do show the 
vulnerability of the method. I understand, 
however, that there is a better example than the 
Burlington election, where voters did cause their 
candidate to fail by voting for the candidate, 
being the election cited by Kathy Dopp recently: 
"In the recent Aspen election if 75 fewer voters 
had voted for one of the city council members, he 
would have won instead of losing."

>  ...If just over 25% of the supporters of 
> Republican Wright had abandoned their true 
> first choice and instead voted for any other 
> candidate (although to meet the 
> non-monotonicity definition they would need to 
> switch to Kiss), they could have kept their 
> favorite candidate, Wright, from making it into 
> the runoff, and allowed the Democrat to face 
> off against Kiss in the final runoff, where the 
> Democrat would beat Kiss. But this did not 
> happen, and there is nobody who thinks it was a 
> sensible strategy for any voters or candidates 
> to advocate. Certainly it had no impact on how 
> candidates campaigned nor ever would have.

Slippery. Monotonicity failure does not require 
that voters be following some strategy, and, in 
fact, the big problem with monotonicity failure 
is that the voter's vote has an unexpected effect.

Is Bouricius claiming that it would make no sense 
for the Republicans to decide to elect Montroll 
instead of Kiss? They could, and that IRV is 
being used would allow them to do this, as would 
plurality. But they would have a more 
straightforward way of doing it, and easier: Vote 
M>W>K, which only flips their first preference, 
same as would be done with Plurality. What's 
defective about the analysis? That IRV functioned 
poorly when the Republicans sincerely voted their 
first preference is a very bad sign. One of the 
biggest arguments presented for IRV is that it 
supposedly allows sincere voting. It does that 
only in the two-party situation (or only two major candidates).

>Another way that non-monotonicity could have 
>occurred would be if Wright or Montroll lost the 
>election because they got too many first choices 
>that might have gone to some other candidate 
>instead. Since Montroll didn't even make it into 
>the final runoff there is no way this could 
>apply to him (any fewer first choices would just 
>confirm his elimination). That leaves Wright. 
>Again, even if some of his supporters had voted 
>for any other candidate first, Wright would 
>still lose the runoff between either Kiss or 
>Montroll. Smith would need 1,279 first choices 
>that actually went to Wright, to get Smith into 
>the final runoff. But at that point Wright would 
>be in fourth place and have no chance of 
>advancing to the final runoff. So it is 
>mathematically impossible for a switch of first 
>choices away from Wright to have made him a 
>winner. Thus, despite the Smith-Gierzynsnki 
>analysis, there was, in fact, no 
>non-monotonicity event in the Burlington election.

But they did not claim that there was, when we 
look closely. Bouricious is seizing on an 
appearance rather than the substance. They 
actually wrote about a possibility, when the 
details are examined. Bouricius doesn't 
contradict the actual analysis, only a detail of 
how it was presented. Sure, that could be improved.

>It is also worth noting that this same kind of 
>non-monotonic strategy (Republicans conspiring 
>to help elect the Democrat to block the 
>Progressive) could be pursued under the old 
>separate runoff system just as well. In fact, 
>non-monotonicity is a much bigger risk under 
>two-election runoffs because with a separate 
>runoff, strategic manipulators can change their 
>first choice on their ballot between rounds, which can't be done with IRV.

This has nothing to do with analysis of the 
RangeVoting.org paper. The whole issue is a bit 
off. "Strategy" is a way that voters vote that 
improves the outcome from their point of view. 
Generally, strategy is a response or potential 
response to a defect in a voting system, but 
sometimes it is simply part of the system. If 
strategy is desirable but impractical, it would 
show a serious defect in the voting system. 
Strategy in Plurality is how voters make 
Plurality work.... and the extent to which this 
is difficult is just the extent to which Plurality is defective.

>2. In another point in the analysis, Smith and 
>Gierzynski attack IRV for failing to elect the 
>apparent compromise Condorcet-winner.

"Attack." That's Bouricius' favorite word 
describing critics. What's the substance here? It 
did fail to do that, that's clear from the votes. 
Bouricius can't deny that the analysis is 
correct, so he attacks the writers as 
hypocritical or "disengenous," with a thoroughly defective argument:

>  This is disingenuous because Warren Smith 
> himself dismisses the Condorcet-criterion, 
> since his favored method also fails to meet 
> this criterion -- in fact, range voting can 
> elect the Condorcet-loser, which IRV never can, 
> and could quite possibly allow the defeat of a 
> candidate who won an absolutely majority of 51% 
> or more of voters' first choices.

Bouricious either does not understand the 
criticism of the Condorcet Criterion, which only 
applies and can be understood if there is 
preference strength information collected (or 
simulated in studies), or he is himself 
consciously attacking Smith. Or both. If there is 
no preference strength information, the Condorcet 
Criterion is practically an absolute among voting 
systems analysts. Including Smith. Smith does not 
"dismiss" the Condorcet Criterion, rather he notes its limitations, as do I.

And Bouricious gives a handy example. Suppose we 
can, indeed, collect preference strength 
information, so that we can know if a preference 
is trivial or not. Suppose that, voting sincerely 
and accurately, 51% of voters rate A over B, but 
only by one point out of 100, indicating a 
preference that is barely detectable.Say that the 
ratings were 100% and 99%, respectively, and that 
ratings that high represent explicit approval. 
And then that 49% of voters rate B over A by 100 
points. In a pure Range voting system, B wins, 
violating the Majority and Condorcet Criteria. 
Obviously, and in analogous real-world decisions, 
the majority, informed of the result, are very 
likely to accept it, for their votes of 100 and 99 make no sense otherwise.

However, I have proposed Range/runoff, which 
does, in simulations, improve outcome slightly in 
the presence of strategic voting, and it is 
possible that such an anomaly would be tested 
with a runoff. It's debatable either way.

>They observe that in the Burlington election, 
>the candidate who came in third in the initial 
>tally was a compromise choice who could have 
>beat either Wright or Kiss in a head-to-head election.

Which is the criticism of IRV that is found in 
Robert's Rules of Order, Newly Revised. It is 
also a flaw of top-two runoff, in general, though 
the situation might be somewhat ameliorated if 
write-in votes are allowed in the runoff.

>  This is called a Condorcet winner, and is a 
> mathematically valid calculation, though little regarded in American politics.

The Condorcet winner, if one exists, is one that 
would beat all others in a direct contest, and 
most people have very little difficulty 
understanding the significance of that. "American 
politics," though, has given little attention in 
recent years to voting systems in general, but 
political scientists certainly have.

>  The point is that this compromise candidate 
> would come in third and lose badly under the 
> plurality system most IRV opponents support, 
> and would also be eliminated in a traditional two-round runoff election system.

That's partially correct, but something is 
overlooked. By limiting alternatives to 
Plurality, traditional two-round runoff, and IRV, 
Bouricius is plastering over an artificial 
restriction. It's ironic that FairVote has 
continually touted the supposed recommendation of 
IRV in Robert's Rules of Order, when, in fact, 
the method suggested for possible use is not one 
of these three methods, exactly. It is IRV, but 
with a majority requirement, and repeated election if no majority is found.

Hence, if IRV were used as Robert's Rules 
actually recommends, as the first round in an 
election process, with, perhaps, the second round 
being, then, a compromise, electing by a 
plurality if there are more than two candidates 
and voting patterns don't create a majority, the 
same possible winners would exist as with IRV, 
but a defect of IRV would appear, and there is an obvious solution.

American Preferential Voting uses the same 
preferential ballot, three-rank, as IRV often 
uses. But it is canvassed differently. It would 
find the Condorcet winner, more often; but if 
enough voters don't rank the frontrunners, there 
can still be majority failure. In that event the 
possibility that the Condorcet winner is not 
among the top two is truly remote. Basically, if 
you are going to have a two-round system (i.e, 
for use when a majority is not found in the first 
round), then using IRV for the first round 
preserves the major defect of plurality voting in 
the first round: the inability to detect a compromise candidate.

For this reason, the repeated voting of Robert's 
Rules of Order does not allow candidate eliminations at all.

But with a different method of determining the 
top two, IRV would actually work for a first 
round method. Simple. Follow the IRV process, but 
don't modify the "quota," the majority needed to 
elect. Use, instead, the counting process in 
Robert's Rules. If no majority is found after 
*all* eliminations (i.e., down to only one 
candidate being counted), then count all the 
votes for all the candidates and pick the top one 
from those as the one to face the IRV winner in 
the runoff. If they are the same, then pick the top two as to all votes.

Let the voters choose.

>  In fact, such compromise candidates have a 
> better chance under IRV than any other voting 
> system used by any government anywhere in the world.

Slightly misleading. It may be better than any 
voting system used for public elections, but 
voting in parliaments is far more sophisticated, 
and a Condorcet winner can't lose in standard 
deliberative process -- unless not even nominated!

>  But some anti-IRV, pro-plurality activists 
> illogically use IRV's failure to elect the 
> third-place candidate in this election as an 
> excuse for attacking IRV and supporting plurality elections.

Bouricious defines the criticism of IRV in his 
political terms. The argument is highly 
misleading. Almost all IRV implementations have 
been with nonpartisan elections, which behave 
very differently from partisan elections. In 
non-partisan elections, IRV behaves almost 
exactly like plurality. Only in very close 
elections is it at all likely to produce a 
different result, and I haven't seen any examples.

But, in Burlington, an advanced voting system 
should be used, for sure. But IRV simply isn't 
the one. There is a much better choice, with 
wider experience behind it than IRV (in the 
United States), simpler to canvass, and which 
performs much better with respect to both voting 
systems criteria and in simulations which study 
overall voter satisfaction with results. American 
Preferential Voting, it was called by the 
political scientists of the time. Bucklin Voting.

>This criticism of IRV is legitimate when coming 
>from Condorcet advocates, (which Warren Smith is 
>not, since his favored system also fails the Condorcet criterion).

I explain above why Bouricius's criticism is off. 
Range Voting fails the Condorcet Criterion only 
in certain cases where that Criterion does not 
produce optimal results. This is was not the 
situation in Burlington, probably. The Condorcet 
Criterion is universally recognized as one of the 
most important voting systems criteria, and only 
with the introduction of utility analysis did it 
become possible to wideliy recognize the defects 
in the criterion. To make it clear, most of the 
time the Condorcet winner will win a Range 
election, it takes unusual conditions for the Range winner to be different.

And it is easy to show that, under those 
conditions, there is indeed a better winner than 
the Condorcet winner. In Burlington, though, the 
Range winner, I'm sure, and the Condorcet winner 
would have been identical, unless voters bullet 
voted, in which case Range defaults to plurality, as does IRV.

>  It comes down to a matter of what values one 
> feels are most important in an election process 
> - -both in who should win and what kind of 
> campaign you want to see run. I and many other 
> experts feel the "mutual-majority" and 
> "later-no-harm" criteria are far more important 
> than the Condorcet criterion, for example.

Later-No-Harm is such a highly questionable 
criterion that the reviewer of the paper which 
proposed it said it was disgusting. Basically, 
Later-No-Harm guarantees that a voting systems 
method cannot find an optimal compromise.

Where is the criticism of the analysis that we 
were led to expect, showing that it was 
"defective"? I'm seeing arguments made up to 
promote IRV, but not a showing of defect.

>Condorcet voting methods discount the relative 
>importance of first choices, to the extent that 
>a candidate who came in last place in terms of 
>first choices, or even wins no first choices at 
>all, but who is a broadly acceptable second 
>choice, can win a Condorcet election.

Sure. And should, most people would agree, as 
long as those second preferences represented 
approval and satisfaction with the result. 
Because of the habits of partisan politics, we 
often think of elections as contests, with each 
side pouring itself into the campaign and trying 
to win, rather than as devices whereby a society 
finds broadly acceptable solution. But in small 
towns and cooperative environments, that's what 
elections actually are, and, as well, other ways of making collective choices.

Later-No-Harm and the associated strength 
accorded to first preferences largely assumes 
this kind of context, and, then, encourages and 
maintains it, and that is very much what is wrong 
with American politics, it easily becomes the 
politics of division. IRV does nothing to fix 
this, and perpetuates it, from what we can see of 
IRV experience in other countries.

>One concern is how that might affect candidate 
>policy discussion, where the avoidance of 
>alienating any voters becomes more important 
>than the earning of any first choices.

This is entirely speculative; however, it applies 
as well to IRV, doesn't it? It is claimed that 
IRV reduces negative campaigning -- without 
evidence -- but, if this were true, wouldn't it 
mean that candidates would be avoiding offending 
those who have other first choices, hoping to get 
lower-ranked choices from them?

This has nothing to do with response to the RangeVoting.org paper.

>  But this, at least is an area of legitimate 
> disagreement over what values to reward in an 
> election process, where reasonable and honest 
> people can hope to resolve their differences through open discussion.

Hey, great! Why not use a voting system that 
simulates what would actually happen in a series 
of plurality votes, repeated until one candidate 
has a majority, without eliminations. There is a 
method which does that, quite well. American Preferential Voting.

It is an approval method, instant runoff 
approval, and approval is the simplest Range 
method. Range balloting could be used instead of 
the ranked ballot of standard Bucklin, to quite 
accurately simulated the lowering of approval 
cutoff that takes place as voters compromise in a 
series of elections. IRV eliminates candidates, 
standard repeated ballot does not. Thus the 
compromise winner is not eliminated, but quickly 
rises in approval, until a majority have approved.

But Bucklin, like IRV, can fail to find a 
majority; unlike IRV, when it has done this, it 
has counted all the votes, it's done the most 
that could be done. Bucklin, like IRV, was 
apparently oversold as finding majorities without 
runoffs. That's not possible to guarantee without 
coercing voters. Hence my suggestion: Bucklin as a primary election method.

>So the Smith-Gierzysnki analysis shows that IRV 
>is better than plurality (and in fact better than two-election runoffs),

I thought Bouricius was claiming that the analysis was defective.

I agree that IRV is better than raw plurality in 
partisan elections. In nonpartisan elections, it 
is not. Effectively, it *is* plurality.

>  yet plurality voting advocates twist the story 
> to claim it shows how bad IRV is.

But it also does that.

>The lead author of the report favors other 
>un-tested voting methods that he naively thinks 
>are better than any other system, and constantly 
>attacks IRV in hopes of winning support for his 
>favorite theoretical system. The net result is to help maintain the status quo.

Bouricius, initially complaining about a 
non-existent personal attack, devoted much of his 
response to impugning the motives of the authors 
of the paper, and to promoting IRV based on 
peripheral and speculative arguments with no 
basis in fact (such as the supposed effect on campaigning).

IRV is a faux reform that produces, under some 
conditions, a slight improvement over plurality. 
It fixes what I've called the first-order spoiler 
effect, where a minor, no-hope candidate splits 
the vote for one of two major candidates, causing the ostensibly

>For more defense of IRV in Burlington, including 
>my critique of Gierzsynki's unfounded claim that 
>IRV creates a bias against less well-educated 
>voters, see my 
><http://vermontdailybriefing.com/?p=1215>post at Vermont Daily Briefing.

There is some evidence about that, from polls 
that have been done. But to my mind, it's largely off the point.