[EM] irv3/av3

[David L Wetzell]

From: Jameson Quinn <jameson.quinn at gmail.com>
> To: EM <election-methods at lists.electorama.com>
> Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2011 10:17:52 -0600
> Subject: [EM] IRV3/AV3
> The third rank in IRV3/AV3 is essentially only useful for turkey-raising.
> For instance, imagine the 2000 election with two Nader clones,
> Bush/Gore/Nader1/Nader2. Bush voters could vote Bush>Nader2>Nader1, and
> possibly eliminate Gore from the IRV3 round. (Or with honest voting, Gore
> could be center-squeezed; but that's a separate possibility).
>
> Allowing equal rankings and/or having only one runoff round (IRV3/AV2)
> would help with other problems, but they would if anything make the
> turkey-raising problem worse.
>
> Jameson
>
>
> dlw: "only useful" is strong language. ...

Let's consider that... Say R-voters are 40%, D-voters are 45% and ND1 and
ND2 split the rest...

R-voters all vote stragetically B-ND2-ND1 and B-ND1-ND2(50-50) (though one
voter refuses to vote strategically)
D-voters all vote D. (why would they be worried about their first-rank
being disqualfied?)
ND1-supporters vote ND1-ND2-D
ND2-supporters vote ND2-ND1-D.

then D gets 55% of teh vote
R gets 40%,
ND1 and ND2 both get 40+15% - one vote.

So D, ND1 and ND2 go to the 2nd round, where D gets 45, ND1 gets 27.5- one
vote and ND2 gets 27.5 - one vote and it's a cointoss.  Then the votes get
transferred to the other Nader clone and (s)he would win, but only because
of the dumb voting strategy of the Republicans.

But can the Rs really engineer such a massive strategic voting and would
they want to if it might elect a ND clone?

 The bigger point is that the Dem party machine is very strong.  They'd
have little need to encourage their supporters to vote for 3rd party
candidates as their 2nd/3rd choices and so the Rs wd need to do a lot of
strategic voting to make a diff, and could very well end up shooting
themselves in the foot.

As for center-squeezing, that's not really a problem in the US as a
whole...
Third parties are too small and scattered.
dlw
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