[EM] More non-altruistic attacks on IRV usage.

[Dave Ketchum]

Trying one more time to start a sales pitch for switching from IRV to  
Condorcet.

On Dec 1, 2011, at 10:18 PM, robert bristow-johnson wrote:
> On 12/1/11 5:14 PM, David L Wetzell wrote:
>>
>>    KM:If the cost of campaigning is high enough that only the two
>>    major parties can play the game, then money (what you call $peech)
>>    will still have serious influence.
>>
>> dlw:My understanding/political theory is that $peech is inevitable  
>> and all modern democracies are unstable mixtures of popular  
>> democracy and kleptocracy/plutocracy.  To bolster the former, we  
>> must accept the inevitability of the latter.  This is part of why I  
>> accept a two-party dominated system and seek to balance the use of  
>> single-seat/multi-seat elections and am an anti-perfectionist on  
>> the details of getting the best single/multi-seat election.  Deep  
>> down, I am skeptical of whether a multi-party system improves  
>> things that much or would do so in my country.
>
> i am thoroughly convinced that a multi-party (and viable  
> independent) system improves things over the two-party system.  
> besides the money thing, i just cannot believe that exhausting our  
> social choice to between Dumb and Dumber is the lot that a  
> democratic society must be forced to accept.  what was so  
> frustrating during Town Meeting Day in 2010 (when the IRV repeal  
> vote was up), it was another choice between Dumb and Dumber.  and,  
> as usual, Dumber prevailed in that choice.  nobody seems to get it  
> (present company excluded).  added to the result of the 2000 prez  
> election and, even more so, the 2004 result, the aggregate evidence  
> is that American voters are stupid.  incredibly stupid.  and a large  
> portion of Burlington Democrats were stupid to join with the  
> GOPpers, the latter who were acting simply in their self-interest to  
> repeal IRV.  and the Progs were dumb to continue to blather IRV  
> happy talk as if it worked just fine in 2009.

Voters know ranking from IRV (except equal ranks are permitted).   
Voters can rank as many as they approve of (and SHOULD get told they  
are not required to rank any others they would not want to have win).   
BIG deal is ability to rank both choice among likely winners, and own  
best choice, and use strongest ranking for the one you like best.

Big difference from IRV is that counters read all that the voters  
rank.  From this the counters produce the x*x matrix that anyone can  
learn to read and see how close any third parties are getting to  
becoming winners.

When there are one or more strong third parties such can win, or  
become part of a cycle among the strongest candidates.  Not likely to  
happen often but cycle members were each close to winning.  There are  
multiple Condorcet methods to support the various ways cycles may get  
resolved.
>
>> dlw:Burlington's two major parties would not be the same as the two  
>> nat'l major parties.
>>
> David, we don't have two major parties.  we have three.  the Dems  
> may be the least of the three, but they're centrist and preferable  
> to the GOP than are the Progs and preferable to the Progs than are  
> the GOP.  but they are literally "center squeezed".  that is  
> precisely the term.
>
>> Republicans would vote Democrat in Burlington mayoral elections.
>>
> if forced to.  but they would like to give their own guy their  
> primary support.  IRV promised them that they could vote for their  
> guy and, by doing so, not elect the candidate they hated the most.   
> and in 2009, IRV precisely failed that promise.
>
> it not a tug-of-war with a single rope and the centrists have to  
> decide whether they get on the side of the GOP or the side of the  
> Progs.  the idea of having a viable multi-party election and a  
> decent method to measure voter preference is a joined, three-way  
> rope going off in directions 120 degrees apart.  Progs get to be  
> Progs, Dems get to be Dems, and GOP get to be dicks (errr, Repubs).   
> we know, because the ballots are public record, that the outcome  
> that would have caused the least amount of collective disappointment  
> is not the winner that the IRV algorithms picked, given the voter  
> preference information available and weighting that equally for each  
> voter.
>
>> KM:So why would IRV improve things enough over Plurality? That  
>> verdict, too, has to come from somewhere.
>>
>> dlw: more votes get counted in the final round than with FPTP.   
>> Thus, the de facto center is closer to the true center
>>
> i dunno what you mean by "de facto" or "true" center, but neither  
> was elected in the Burlington 2009 example.  (but, again, favoring  
> the center more than the wings is not why Condorcet is better than  
> IRV.  it is because of the negative consequences of electing a  
> candidate when a majority of voters prefer an different specific  
> candidate and mark their ballots so.)
>
>> and third party candidates can speak out their dissents and force  
>> the major party candidates to take them seriously.
>>
> well, here the third party won, against the expressed wishes of a  
> majority of voters.  i do not agree with the GOPpers that IRV was a  
> method taylor made to elect the Progs, it's there to make a three- 
> party system work which means that third parties have a good change  
> and win (or lose) on their merits, not because they are perceived  
> (or not) as electable.
>
>> Why not look at the total number of cities that have adopted IRV  
>> and see what a small fraction have had buyer's remorse?
>>
> doesn't look good, David.  Cary NC, Aspen CO, Pierce Co WA, Ann  
> Arbor MI, Burlington VT.  it's a damn shame that reform advocates  
> didn't think this out a little in advance and sell the ranked-choice  
> ballot tabulated by Condorcet instead of Hare.
> -- 
> r b-j                  rbj at audioimagination.com
>
> "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
> ----