[EM] piling on against IRV

[Kathy Dopp]

Oops. Sorry. I see I'm wrong again (to save you the trouble Robert). I
see you did say 55% of the original turnout on election day numbers,
so I see your point is valid.  Sorry, I'm trying to go too fast and
get onto other things.

However, that does not alter the fact that the voters have the CHOICE
to vote or not in the real runoff elections, unlike with STV/IRV.

Voters may decide not to vote in the runoff for many reasons, such as
not caring which of the two finalists win, but they ought to have the
right to participate and to have the opportunity to learn about the
two finalists and make a decision if they want to - ALONG WITH THESE
OTHER RIGHTS THAT IRV/STV REMOVES:

1. IRV/STV remove the right cast a vote with a positive effect on a
candidate’s chances of winning.

2. IRV/STV remove the right to participate in the final decision of
who wins the election by eliminating voters’ ballots prior to the
final counting round. The more candidates, the more voters are
eliminated prior to the final counting round.

3. IRV/STV remove the right to have one’s votes counted equally and
fairly with all other voters’ votes because only voters supporting the
least popular candidates as their 1st choice are assured of having
their 2nd choice candidate counted when their 1st choice candidate
looses.

4. In comparison with top‐two runoff elections, IRV/STV remove the
right to elect majority winners. San Francisco had to eliminate its
legal right to elect majority winners when it adopted IRV/STV because
STV routinely elects winners with far less than 50% of the votes.

5. IRV/STV remove the right to a transparent, verifiable election
process with a decentralized, simple counting process that can be
easily manually counted and audited.

6. IRV/STV removes the right to have an economical election process.

7. IRV/STV removes the right to change one’s mind between the primary
and general election and to have time to get to know the candidates.

SURELY THERE ARE ALTERNATIVE VOTING METHODS THAT DO NOT MAKE THE
ELECTIONS PROCESS LESS FAIR AND REMOVE SO MANY VOTER RIGHTS!!

I am sure that Condorcet, Approval and other methods that can also be
applied in PR elections would be far less problematic and destructive
of voting rights and even be an improvement over plurality.



-- 

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