[EM] Condorcet How?

[Terry Bouricius]

Robert,

Two corrections...Bills to use IRV for certain statewide elections have 
been introduced in Vermont in every session since 1998, and it was passed 
by the Vermont House and Senate a few  years ago. It would require IRV for 
U.S. House and Senate elections. That bill, however was vetoed by the 
Republican governor.

The Secretary of State planned to conduct the statewide IRV tally (if the 
initial first choice totals showed no majority winner), by having the 
sheriffs transport the sealed ballot bags to regional count centers, and 
having the IRV tally done by hand. Since the bill, as passed, actually 
used a top-two contingent system (only the top two initial candidates 
would advance), the tally would be relatively easy.

Terry


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "robert bristow-johnson" <rbj at audioimagination.com>
To: "election-methods List" <election-methods at electorama.com>
Sent: Monday, March 22, 2010 10:46 PM
Subject: Re: [EM] Condorcet How?



On Mar 22, 2010, at 6:06 PM, Markus Schulze wrote:

> Dear Robert,
>
> are you the questioner at 00:42:00 -- 00:44:25?

it could be.  i dunno if i wanna load the video again and figure that
out.  i was pointing out that the purpose we adopted IRV in the first
place was to relieve the split majority the burden of strategic
voting in the form of compromising.  the liberal majority did not
have to make a painful choice between Prog and Dem as they would with
the "traditional" ballot.  but that burden wasn't eliminated, but
transferred to those that preferred Wright first, Kiss not at all,
and Montroll somewhere in between.  (i like to call them "GOP Prog-
haters".)  those folks actually caused the Prog to be elected purely
by marking the GOP as their first choice.  whether it's Nader in 2000
or Wright in 2009, we should be able to vote for our favorite without
electing our least favorite.  but this minority group wanted to just
toss that burden back to the majority group and i wanted to know if
the anti-IRVers understood that and how they thought that it's better
to burden the majority.

i was interrupted before i could frame the question and they said
they didn't understand the question and didn't answer it.

the thing that was very irritating to me was that the pro-IRV folks
surely didn't come to this knife fight with their knives sharpened.
i couldn't even tell that they brought their knives.  there were so
many dumb things the anti-IRV side said that should have been pounced
on and was let go.

Terry Bouricius is also a Burlington resident and is known in
Burlington for being the primary promoter of IRV (i think that's
right, ain't it Terry?).  i didn't see him at the debate, but Rep.
Mark Larson and someone from League of Women Voters were on the pro-
IRV side and they didn't come fightin', in my opinion.  and part of
the problem is that *they* didn't really understand or acknowledge
the cascade of anomalies that resulted when the IRV election fails to
elect the Condorcet winner as it did in 2009.

and, i'm not sure who, but someone introduced a measure in the state
legislature to elected the governor by IRV (there is a perennial Prog
candidate that doesn't get any traction because Vermont is not all
like Burlington or Brattleboro).  but we know (and Kathy won't let us
forget) that IRV is not "precinct summable" and that would be a
ridiculous mess for a statewide election (they would have to transmit
via internet, individual ballot data to the capitol for tabulation
and then securely bring up a disk or thumb drive (and the original
paper ballots) with the ballot data up for verification on a later
date.  it's not so instant if the central counting location is
distant.  more so now (after the IRV repeal), but that bill had
essentially zero chance of being passed by the legislature and the
introduction of it was not well conceived.  and that also should be a
lesson to FairVote regarding where (and why) they should be marketing
IRV.

i'm still mostly bent outa shape that wherever Preferential Voting
was introduced to some population for use in government, it is also
introduced only with the STV method of tabulation (under whatever
name: "IRV" "RCV").  what a sad mistake.  i really think that
FairVote and other IRV promoters should soberly assess the product
that they are selling instead of continuing to focus on how they're
gonna market it.  IRV is bound to screw up again and will, by
association, sully the ranked ballot.

--

r b-j                  rbj at audioimagination.com

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."




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