[EM] piling on against IRV

[robert bristow-johnson]

On May 6, 2010, at 4:18 PM, Jameson Quinn wrote:

> I manned phones, made donations to FairVote, and voted, to help pass  
> IRV in San Francisco.

i cannot claim to have done all that.  all's i can say is that i voted  
for IRV in 2005 (expecting that it would likely elect the CW, so what  
the heck) and voted to retain it in 2010 (hoping that, with the ranked  
ballot saved, we could reform the tabulation method and make some good  
history).


> 1. Don't denigrate other solutions to problems you acknowledge. In  
> fact, I think you should support them. That means that whenever  
> comparing IRV to another reform proposal, make it clear from the  
> outset that the other proposal is superior to plurality (except in  
> the very rare cases where it isn't).

i think they mostly claim that any other method has no track record in  
governmental elections and have an ice cube's chance in hell of being  
adopted.  i continue to ask "what if it was Condorcet that was  
promoted instead of IRV from the very beginning?"  in order to  
accomplish something, you have to begin.

> 2. Don't lie about the benefits of IRV. For instance, unless full  
> ranking is mandatory, IRV does not guarantee a majority.

it doesn't even do that with full ranking.  we had full ranking (5  
candidates and 5 levels of ranking) in Burlington yet a candidate was  
elected with IRV when there was a clear majority of voters that had  
marked their ballots that another specific candidate was preferred.   
that limited ranking (i hear in SF you had dozens of candidates and 3  
levels of ranking) is a problem, but not the sole cause of the  
thwarted majority pathology.

> You could say instead that it "does a better job of getting a  
> majority" than plurality, or whatever.

yeah, it does a better job than FPTP.

> 3. Be open to dialogue with other voting reformers. For instance,  
> don't turn off comments on all your blogs and HuffPost pieces, and  
> don't moderate out relevant but critical posts on the instantrunoff  
> mailing list. I know that it hurts, because there are definitely  
> people with much more of an animus against IRV than I have, but the  
> problems in running away from dialogue are worse.

couldn't agree more.  Rob (i'll bet he's reading this), it was your  
denial and avoidance that has soured my alliance with FairVote's  
mission more than anything.


--

r b-j                  rbj at audioimagination.com

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."