[EM] piling on against IRV

[Kathy Dopp]

> From: robert bristow-johnson <rbj at audioimagination.com>
> To: election-methods Methods <election-methods at lists.electorama.com>
> Subject: Re: [EM] piling on against IRV

>> In truth, IRV and STV are an enormous step *down* from existing
>> plurality voting,
>
> ...
>
>> IRV/STV also finds majority winners far *less* often than does any
>> primary/general or top-two runoff plurality election system, unless
>> you apply your deceptive creative new definition of "majority" as not
>> a majority of all voters who cast ballots, but of all voters whose
>> ballots are not eliminated from consideration by the final counting
>> round (some of them after *not* having had all their choices counted
>> whenever a subsequent choice was eliminated prior to a higher choice.
>
> so how does delayed TTR solve that problem?

In TTR, every voter is allowed to vote and all their votes are
counted.  I'm surprised you didn't know that.

TTR - all voters are allowed to participate

IRV/STV - the more candidates who run, the fewer voters can
participate in the final counting round, given the US system of
allowing up to 3 ranks on a ballot.

It's a very simple concept to understand.

>
>
>>
>> Yes, truly the "later-no-harm" feature of IRV/STV is one of its flaws,
>> eliminating the possibility of finding compromise candidates that a
>> majority of voters favors more than the elected candidates who can be
>> opposed by a majority of voters, as happened, I believe, in
>> Burlington, VT where you live.
>
> so now, *specifically* (regarding Burlington 2009) how would have TTR
> solved that?

In TTR, in both elections, all votes are counted. I'm surprised you
didn't know that.

TTR: all votes counted

IRV/STV: only votes cast for 1st choice counted for all voters.  only
votes for subsequent choices counted if you voted for the least
popular candidates 1st. Otherwise your 1st choice vote harms your
subsequent and can cause them to lose.

You surely must understand that so I think you must be assuming
without any evidence to support your claim that voters would
strategize exactly the same if voting using STV/IRV versus plurality
TTR even though the voters were fooled by people like Terry into
thinking that "no votes are wasted" in STV/IRV and do not imagine that
they can cause their 2nd choice to lose by voting for their 1st
choice.

Where is your data or evidence to support your claim that the voters
in Burlington, VT would vote for their 1st choice IRV/STV candidate if
the contest were plurality?  It seems to me that many voters would
have recognized that they needed to vote for one of the likely top two
winners in a plurality contest, whereas in IRV/STV they were fooled by
rhetoric such as Bouricius' into thinking they could vote honestly
without hurting their 2nd choice candidate.
> yeah, but the Dems have less in common with the Repubs than they have
> with the Progs.  that's what the numbers say.  that's why, in the
> final IRV round the vast majority of Montroll votes got transferred to
> Kiss than those that were transferred to Wright.
>
>> who would have both gotten a far better result
>
> NO THEY WOULDN'T!  That is Your Lie.  the interests of the Democrats

Oh.. I see that you are certain that you read the minds of all
Burlington, VT voters better than I do, so that you can make the
unlikely and unsupported claims that:

1. none of the voters in Burlington, VT were fooled by Terry's
rhetoric into thinking that their votes "would not be wasted" and did
not realize that in STV/IRV their 1st choice vote can cause their 2nd
choice to lose,  (i.e. you assume all votes understood that their 1st
choice would hurt their 2nd choice in IRV/STV), and

2. none of the voters in Burlington, VT would be knowledgeable about
plurality voting (that they've used in VT for decades) to know to vote
for their favorite top-two contender if they wanted their vote to
count  (I.e. you assume with IRV/STV voters understand how to
strategize by voting for one of the top-two candidates 1st perfectly,
but when using plurality voting, they're suddenly too stupid to
understand that they need to vote for one of the top two if they want
their vote to elect a winner).

So you assume that the voters in Burlington, VT are both (at the same
time) infinitely brilliant about IRV/STV and how it works, but
clueless about how plurality voting works.  So voters are both
brilliant and utterly stupid at the same time.

I would call this a proof ad reductio absurdum that you are wrong.

Perhaps your highly unlikely scenario is correct, but why then did
Burlington VT voters, including most Repubs and some Dems all vote to
rescind IRV/STV after learning that Terry's claims about IRV/STV "not
wasting votes" and "finding majority winners", etc was false.

I believe that my assumptions about Burlington, VT voters is much more
likely to be true, than yours, so in your way of thinking, then that
makes *you* the liar, doesn't it?

Enough today of rebutting BS.

Gotta do other work.

Cheers,

-- 

Kathy Dopp
http://electionmathematics.org
Town of Colonie, NY 12304
"One of the best ways to keep any conversation civil is to support the
discussion with true facts."

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

View my research on my SSRN Author page:
http://ssrn.com/author=1451051