[EM] piling on against IRV

[robert bristow-johnson]

On May 10, 2010, at 1:54 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
>
>>> However, that does not alter the fact that .
>>
>> they have the choice in *either* TTR or IRV.  and *both* can fail to
>> arrive at the Condorcet winner
>
>
> I said nothing about the fact that IRV/STV tends to eliminate the
> Condorcet winner prior to the final round,

i never said you did.  you were taking about IRV failing to elect the  
"majority winner" (think about who you mean by such).  in the same  
manner, so also does TTR.

> not solve the spoiler
> problem, not find majority winners.

TTR doesn't find the majority winner either.  it's no better than  
IRV.  both TTR and IRV may very well send two candidates to the  
runoff, neither whom is the majority preferred candidate.  because of  
reduced voter turnout, TTR has the additional risk of electing the 3rd- 
preferred candidate whereas IRV's worst risk is in electing the 2nd- 
preferred candidate.  that's why returning to TTR was a step backwards.

i'm addressing your points directly.  if you don't stop dancing around  
and substituting non sequiturs to mine, the discussion is over.  this  
is a common fallacy called the "straw man".  i will not help you beat  
the straw man.  i have no interest in it.

>
> Again:
>
> Voters have the CHOICE to vote or not in the real runoff elections,
> unlike with STV/IRV where the more candidates who run for office,

that (the latter regarding IRV) is false and you've never shown it to  
be true.  you just keep repeating the same canard hoping, like  
Goebbels, that a lie repeated oft enough evolves in status from  
outright falsehood to plausible notion to gospel truth.  it doesn't  
but you may continue to pretend otherwise.


> the
> greater number of voters are excluded INVOLUNTARILY from participating
> in the final IRV/STV round.

repeating the falsehood doesn't make it true.


>
>> and i think it's bad): the repeal of IRV will create pressure (if  
>> they
>> want to win) for people with more aligned political interest to unite
>> behind a consolidated candidate.  it will push Burlington back to a
>> predominate 2-party environment.  we'll get to choose between Dumb  
>> and
>> Dumber, and if you ever dare to vote for Smart, then Dumber will get
>> elected.
>
> IRV/STV historically has maintained the 2-party dominant system where
> it has been tried in 2-party dominant locations.

well, FPTP creates pressure in a 3-party town to return to a 2-party  
dominant system.  the 2 parties that have the most in common and  
together command a clear majority will now have to run a consolidated  
candidate in order to securely beat the 3rd party with the nearly  
opposite ideology.  that's even what Geirzynski alludes to.  he thinks  
it's a good thing, i think it's a bad thing.  it is the beginning of  
the end of the separateness of those 2 parties that have the most in  
common.

> In fact IRV is
> designed ideally to prevent minor party candidates from interfering
> with the 2-party system.

that's bullshit.  you have no idea what you are talking about.  you  
misrepresent what the "design" was about.  what i have been saying in  
my complaints about IRV is that it *failed* to do what it's designed  
to do.  not always (sometimes IRV *does* work), but it surely failed  
to accomplish the very goals for which it was designed to accomplish  
in Burlington in 2009.

> Yet another flaw of IRV/STV to add to the list of comparisons where
> there is either no improvement or a decrease in voting rights as
> compared to plurality.

it does better (certainly not perfectly, not as well as Condorcet)  
than FPTP in "finding the majority winner" (using your language.  you  
keep repeating this falsehood and you have never offered anything to  
support it.  you then try to obfuscate the discussion with talk of  
"voting rights" which is non-sequitur because "rights" have nothing to  
do with it.  the same rules that apply to those who claim their rights  
were violated are the same rules that applied to everyone else.

>
>
>>
>>> 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
>>
>> and you have NEVER shown that they were not allowed to with IRV.
>
>
> Really, I do not believe that you are this obtuse as not to understand
> that IRV/STV excludes many many voters from participating in the final
> counting round.  Just try counting some ballots where the number of
> candidates is greater than the number of rankings allowed on the
> ballot plus one, or where voters do not fully rank all the candidates.
> I am fairly certain anyone with a 90 IQ can understand the concept if
> they try counting a few IRV elections, for instance the last
> Burlington, VT mayoral contest excluded some voters from the final
> round.

like TTR, no one was "excluded" involuntarily.  they chose to not cast  
a vote between the two candidates in the runoff.  but the effort  
required of them to vote in the runoff with IRV is far less than the  
effort required of them to vote in the TTR runoff.  one of the  
principles for why we adopted the ranked ballot (and the IRV method of  
tabulation that was unfortunately attached to it) is:

"Election policy that decreases convenience for voters will decrease  
voter
participation. An additional delayed runoff is decidedly less  
convenient than a
single election and fewer voters return later to the polls. Electing  
candidates
with decreased legitimate voter participation cannot be considered as
democratic or as indicative of the will of the people, as electing  
candidates
with higher voter participation."

the proof is with our experience.  the IRV election had 93% turnout in  
the final runoff.  TTR has, at best from our experience, 55% turnout.   
if you want to complain about voter "exclusion" TTR is worse than  
*any* ranked ballot system that is resolved on a single election day.


>
>>> 1. IRV/STV remove the right cast a vote with a positive effect on a
>>> candidate?s chances of winning.
>>
>> non-monotonicity.  we agree about that.
>
> Yea! Reality discussion is possible.

not with you.


>>> 2. IRV/STV remove the right to participate in the final decision of
>>> who wins the election
>>
>> no it doesn't.  no more than TTR.
>
> You think that voters are involuntarily excluded from participating in
> the top-two runoff election in the US?

this is the evidence of your dishonesty.  your disingenuousness.  it  
is comparable to Bush in this interview: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/12/charlies-interv.html 
  and you can see my comment about it at the same web page.  Bush knew  
precisely what the question Charlie Gibson was asking and tried to  
slither out of it by answering a different question.  Gibson had to  
reframe the question and Bush says "Oh, I see what you're saying. You  
know, that's an interesting question."

nice try.  we're not that stupid.

>  I.e. not allowed to cast a vote in the runoff election?
>
> Really?  Come on, you really are pretending you cannot see reality  
> now.

you are a flagrantly dishonest person, Kathy.  i never said that.  i  
said IRV does it (excludes participation) no more than TTR.

and in fact, any non-TRR ("TRR" means "Two Round Runoff") system  
(single ballot on a single election day) includes voter participation  
*more* than TRR (93% vs. 55%).  it does so, because it doesn't require  
voters to jump through the additional hoop of coming to the polls  
again for the runoff.  but some non-TRR systems (like FPTP) fail more  
miserably than IRV to elect the majority-supported candidate.

plonk.  i'm leaving the rest of the verbosity unresponded to.  if,  
like Abd, i have to spend more time responding to "proof by  
verbosity", i will, like i did with Abd, killfile Kathy's posts to  
this list.  (i haven't seen a post from Abd since January, but i know  
he posts since i've seen some, not many, replies to his posts.)  email  
sent directly to me (without EM on the recipient list) still get to my  
Inbox.

Kathy, you're blatantly disingenuous.  if you want to reply to the  
points i make, i'll dance.  if you want to stop misrepresenting what  
i've said, i'll dance.  otherwise you can dance with your strawman or  
dance by yourself (or with Abd, if he's interested).

--

r b-j                  rbj at audioimagination.com

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."