[EM] piling on against IRV

[robert bristow-johnson]

On May 9, 2010, at 12:29 PM, Kathy Dopp wrote:

>> 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.

what voter, in the IRV election in Burlington 2009 was not allowed to  
vote.  other than 4 ballots (out of 8980) that were machine rejected  
(3 of those ballots were later examined and hand counted) were not  
counted?

> TTR - all voters are allowed to participate

and which voters, in the IRV election, were not 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.

you are ignorant of the fact that in Burlington, all 5 candidates were  
ranked (at least they were on the ballot i had).  Burlington is not  
San Francisco.  we evidently have stricter ballot access laws.  i  
don't know what Burlington would have done if there were 25 mayoral  
candidates on the ballot.

in comparison, i have seen 3 different TTR elections for City Council  
in Burlington.  none had more than 55% turnout on runoff day (in  
comparison to the number of voters that came on the first election  
day).  the IRV election had 93% of the voters participating in the  
final round.   93% turnout is a lot better turnout than 55%.  every  
voter that expressed an opinion of at least one of the two candidates  
that made it to that final round participated in the actual choice of  
the elected candidate.

> It's a very simple concept to understand.

which you evidently don't.  your arrogance, Kathy, is greater than  
your ignorance.  you greatly underestimate the people you talk to here  
on this list.  no one here is using those canards as criticism of  
IRV.  we know what they are.

we all expect that people fill out their ballots to express their  
political interest (or, perhaps, they are trying to vote  
strategically).  none of us are stupid enough to buy into the canards  
that you and the IRV opponents repeated over and over again that  
somehow IRV "disenfranchises voters" or doesn't count their vote.   
everyone's ballot entered the counting algorithm with equal status,  
just as would happen in a fair "traditional" election.  those whose  
vote for candidates with low 1st-choice *lost* (the problem we have  
with IRV is that the measure of electoral support depended *only* on  
those 1st-choice votes, a problem not solved with the traditional  
TTR).  those who *chose* not to rank either of the candidates that  
ended up in the final round, did not participate in the runoff just as  
would have happened if they chose to stay home on runoff day in TTR.   
they can blame no one else for their decision not to rank candidates  
they evidently



>
>>
>>
>>>
>>> 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

at least 38% fewer voters come to the polls on runoff day and get  
counted with TTR.  that is what our experience is.

> IRV/STV: only votes cast for 1st choice counted for all voters.

how is that different from the traditional ballot?

> only votes for subsequent choices counted if you voted for the
> least popular candidates 1st.

how is that different than TTR?  if you didn't vote for one of the two  
most popular candidates, the only choice you have left in TTR is for  
one of your "subsequent choices".

> Otherwise your 1st choice vote harms your
> subsequent and can cause them to lose.

but that would be no different (at least in the Burlington 2009  
example) for TTR.  those voters that had their "subsequent choice"  
harmed by their first choice were the 1513 GOP Prog-haters that voted  
GOP>Dem>Prog.  but in TTR, they would not have had their 2nd choice,  
the Dem, in the runoff anyway.  so all they could do is vote again for  
their 1st choice in the runoff and, *if* the turnout was the same (or  
if the reduced turnout had a similar demographic), the election would  
turn out no different.  their favorite candidate would have lost to  
the candidate they hated the most.  the *only* way their interests  
would have been served better is if, with reduced turnout (and with a  
lot of money poured into the runoff election campaign), more of their  
own voters would show for the runoff than their opponents, and then  
they might have won.  but, as we know from the ranked ballots of the  
electorate that *did* come to the original election, the interests of  
the majority of the electorate would have been served more poorly, the  
3rd most popular candidate would have been elected instead of the 2nd  
most popular.

> 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

not necessarily.  i might expect that, in Burlington, the liberal GOP- 
haters would be thinking about whether the Dem or the Prog was more  
electable (that would be a difficult decision since neither candidates  
were minor, like Nader) but i am not making any assumptions other than  
the great majority of people would vote for their favorite candidate.

> 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?

what is your evidence that they would not?  the burden of proof lies  
on you for that.  *you* need to show that, for a significant number of  
voters, their single vote on the "traditional ballot" would be  
different than their favorite candidate.


>  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:

__________________________________

all the below is crap.  just a distraction.  Kathy is pretending that  
it's some form of scholarship.

>
> 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.

__________________________________

alls i know is that the voters that came to the polls marked their  
ballots as so (after the two more minor candidates were eliminated):

          { 1332 M>K>W
  2554 M  {  767 M>W>K
          {  455 M

          { 2043 K>M>W
  2982 K  {  371 K>W>M
          {  568 K

          { 1513 W>M>K
  3297 W  {  495 W>K>M
          { 1289 W

The three pairwise preferences are:

    4067 M   vs   3477 K
    4597 M   vs   3668 W
    4314 K   vs   4064 W   <---   this is the runoff for either IRV or  
TTR

both delayed-TTR and IRV elects the "wrong" candidate, because the  
unambiguous majority-supported candidate does not go into the runoff  
in either case.  with reduced turnout on runoff day, TTR risks  
electing the "wronger" candidate.

Kathy, i stand only on the facts.


> Enough today of rebutting BS.

by supplanting it with your own BS.

> "One of the best ways to keep any conversation civil is to support the
> discussion with true facts."


you are sooo hypocritical (and disingenuous).

Physician, heal thyself.

--

r b-j                  rbj at audioimagination.com

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."