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

[robert bristow-johnson]

On 12/2/11 11:46 AM, David L Wetzell wrote:
>
>         dlw:  Deep down, I am skeptical of whether a multi-party
>         system improves things that much or would do so in my country.
>
>
>     RBJ:i am thoroughly convinced that a multi-party (and viable
>     independent) system improves things over the two-party system.
>     besides the money thing,
>
>
> dlw: It might improve things over our current two-party system, but is 
> there really no choice C?  Ie, 2 major parties, an indefinite number 
> of minor parties trying to become or merge with a major party, and a 
> whole lot of LTPs who specialize in contesting more local elections 
> and o.w. move the political center thru voting strategically together 
> in "less local" elections and engaging in civil disobedience actions.
>
>     RBJ: 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.
>
>
> dlw: It wd have worked just fine if it was continued.
you keep repeating that without justifying it with any facts.  if it was 
continued and was in place for the coming mayoral election in 2012, the 
GOP Prog haters would be saying to themselves "In this town full of 
liberals, I gotta choose between Liberal and More Liberal because if I 
vote for the guy I really like, More Liberal gets elected."

> It's failure to elect the CW was a byproduct of how IRV does not end 
> the tendency twds 2 party domination.
Sorry David, but you blather.  the reason that IRV failed to elect the 
CW is that it is not a Condorcet-compliant method.  like Borda or 
Bucklin.  the reason that IRV failed to elect the CW is because IRV 
elects the IRV winner.  sometimes the IRV winner is the same as the CW 
and sometimes it is not.  "2-party domination" is certainly, to use a 
term you seem to like, non sequitur.

you can apply the same blather to the use of the Electoral College in 
electing the president.  sometimes the EC elects the same candidate that 
the popular vote does, but it is not constrained to do so in all cases.  
it has different criteria than the popular vote, although often the two 
will agree on the same candidate.

>         dlw:Burlington's two major parties would not be the same as
>         the two nat'l major parties.
>
>     RBJ:David, we don't have two major parties.  we have three.
>
>
> dlw: I'm speaking in future tense.  If we got 2 dynamic major parties 
> then we don't need a centrist party, cuz the center will be too 
> dynamic to be the basis for a party platform.

silly blather.  my interest in voting method reform is because long ago 
i came to the other conclusion (we need more than two viable parties).

>
>         RBJ: 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.
>
>
> dlw: You can't make a melding pot without breaking some vases.

David, YOU DO NOT GET IT.  it went pfffft over your head.

stop trying to impress us with argument when you just really do not get it.

IRV promised something.  in 2009 in Burlington Vermont, IRV failed to 
deliver on that promise in a totally objective and technical manner.  
it's like the steering system in your car failed and the car was 
directed into the ditch.  something didn't work right.  something didn't 
work as intended.  unfortunately, as a consequence, the whole concept of 
ranked-choice voting got sullied by that failure of this particular 
method of tabulating the votes.  unfortunately, even though IRV was 
repealed by a pretty thin margin (4%), the detractors of IRV (and, 
because of guilt by association in their simple minds, ranked voting by 
any other method) believe that God himself ordained the traditional 
vote-for-one-with-an-X ballot.

>  IRV tends to do that, it doesn't do it all the time, especially when 
> there's a transition to a new set of two major parties around the new 
> political center.
totally unimpressive blather.  you're stringing together words without 
creating meaning.


>
>     RBJ: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.
>
>
> dlw:change is hard but it also is crucial..

:-\

yeah, and change is harder when unnecessary setbacks occur because the 
advocates for changed didn't think it through.  this kinda stupidity 
happens with other activists when they do something stupid (like peace 
activists fighting cops or opponents in the street) and it backfires.  
FairVote, for laudable reasons, successfully persuaded the electorate in 
Burlington to take on IRV in 2005 and it backfired the second time it 
was used.  they didn't think it through.  like maybe Rob Ritchie might 
have asked himself "what if there are 3 or 4 candidates all roughly 
equal (none are a Nader-like spoiler)?  what will happen then?  what if 
the CW is not elected?  what if some minority group discovers that 
strategic voting would have served their political interests better than 
sincere voting?


>
>         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
>
>     RBJ: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.)
>
>
> dlw: There's always a de facto center, depending on the rules of the 
> election/game.  IRV was instigating a realignment in parties around 
> the true center.
no, that is not what IRV (or any other attempt at voting system reform) 
is about.  it is not about "instigating a realignment in parties".  it's 
about letting the parties be who they are, but allowing nascent third 
parties have a real chance at getting in the club with the "big boys" by 
having some possibility of getting their candidates elected.  and they 
get that possibility if voters can feel free to vote for these 
candidates without risk of "throwing away" their vote on a potential 
spoiler.

>         dlw: and third party candidates can speak out their dissents
>         and force the major party candidates to take them seriously.
>
>     RBJ: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.
>
>
> dlw: It makes it so that minor parties get more voice and the two 
> major parties need to realign to the true center.  A minor party won 
> because the two major parties were poorly aligned for Burlington.
>
>         dlw:  Why not look at the total number of cities that have
>         adopted IRV and see what a small fraction have had buyer's
>         remorse?
>
>     RBJ: 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.
>
>
> dlw:The evidence for Ann Arbor shows its repeal could be learned from.

well, lessee what you might learn from the evidence from the repeal at 
Burlington.  (and it isn't simply that the pro-IRV people didn't fight 
the anti-IRV forces well enough. the problem was that there was some 
real and true pathologies with IRV that the 2009 election brought out 
that couldn't be defended.)

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r b-jrbj at audioimagination.com

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."