[EM] Learning from IRV's success

[robert bristow-johnson]

On Jul 7, 2011, at 4:56 PM, Jameson Quinn wrote:

> Russ's message about simplicity is well-taken. But the most  
> successful voting reform is IRV - which is far from being the  
> simplest reform. Why has IRV been successful?

how can one answer a question when one does not accept the premise of  
it?

my take is that IRV is only successful when it elects the Condorcet  
winner.

> I want to leave this as an open question for others before I try to  
> answer it myself. The one answer which wouldn't be useful would be  
> "Because CVD (now FairVote) was looking for a single-winner version  
> of STV". There's a bit of truth there, but it's a long way from the  
> whole truth, and we want to find lessons we can learn from moving  
> forward, not useless historical accidents.

are you defining "successful" in that it may have a foothold usage in  
governmental elections whereas Condorcet has not been used in such?

--

r b-j                  rbj at audioimagination.com

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."