[EM] A conversation with an English woman about IRV [WARNING: mildly obnoxious and long rant]

[robert bristow-johnson]

On May 4, 2011, at 1:48 AM, matt welland wrote:

> On Tue, 2011-05-03 at 21:38 -0400, robert bristow-johnson wrote:
>> after IRV has been beaten up so badly because of its perceived
>> complexity, people ask me how can i explain Condorcet in a sentence
>> and i answer:
>>
>>   "If Candidate A is preferred by more voters than Candidate B, then
>> Candidate B is not elected."
>>
>> it's simple and sensible and, of course, fails if there is a cycle.
>>
>
>  I have
> followed this list for years and read many explanations on Condorcet  
> and
> just like the description given to the English woman above none of  
> them
> are easy to assimilate. How the heck do you translate my rankings into
> "if more prefer A over C ..."

If more voters rank A above C on their ballots (than those who rank C  
above A).  It translates directly to a simple, traditional election  
where only A and C are candidates on the ballot.  It means the same  
thing.  All the ranked ballot requires the voter to do is decide how  
they feel about candidates B and D (relative to A and C) by Election  
Day.  So we require voters to make up their mind about the candidates  
by Election Day. Such an imposition.

> You are asking people to have faith in
> your fancy math and programming.

Condorcet is precinct-summable.  It can be counted by hand, but is  
much more laborious than counting First-Past-The-Post by hand.  But  
the counting principle is simple.  We rely on computers to do  
tabulating anyway, but what the computers are (or should be) counting  
should be readily understood.  If there is no cycle, Condorcet  
satisfies that.


> At the end of the day I remain
> unconvinced that it is a sufficiently better method than Approval by  
> any
> metric grounded in the messy reality of imperfect humans voting for
> other imperfect humans to be their leaders.

Does not allow the voter to express a preference over two approved  
candidates.  A Libertarian that leans Republican when forced to choose  
in a two-party race should be able to express that he/she likes the  
Libertarian more than the Republican (and would feel forced to  
"approve" of both as opposed to the Dem with Approval voting).

> From the perspective of US single winner elections I say the  
> following:
>
> 1. Approval voting;
>     - trivial to transition to (no over-voting), want to vote for the
>       underdog while hedging your bet for the frontrunner, no problem
>     - everyone gets the mechanics and the nuances of approval after a
>       minute of explanation
>     - very low effort to vote, avoids all the comparisons in ranking


>     - minimal real world risk of unintended consequences
>     - naturally resistant to strategic voting.

No, it is not.  It requires a great deal of strategic thinking in  
voting.  I had (virtually) a first-hand experience of that in the  
Vermont State Senate race last year.


> It's binary, what can you do?

You can (and must) decide whether or not to approve of a lessor- 
preferred (but "approved of") candidate, relative to the candidate  
that you really want to see elected.


> 2. Range voting
>     - degree of improvement over approval is debatable, at least for
>       today, maybe a few years from now the need will be different
>     - significant step in complexity for the equipment, 1 bit toggle
>       to n bit integer. I can't implement that on the current ballots
>       used in Arizona for example.
> 3. IRV
>     - this one feels good to half assed thinkers and that is its
>       greatest danger. 'nuff said.
> 4. Condorcet
>     - theoretically near perfect but I don't grok it and neither will
>       99% of the populace.

Grok this:  If more voters prefer Candidate A to Candidate B, then  
Candidate B is not elected.

Hard to grok?

>     - a bitch to implement without a computer for the UI and we all
>       know how great it is having computers in this process

Falsehood.

Needs the same old ranked-ballot we had with IRV.  just a different  
method to count them.

>     - any ranking system is way to much of a pain for the average
>       Joe who just wants to get out of the damn polling booth and
>       home to dinner.

Falsehood.

It requires less out of the voter than either Range or, because of the  
need for tactical thinking, Approval.

> Go try any of the example systems available
>       on the web, I'm guessing it takes 10x the time for normal
>       non-geniuses to articulate that they want in a ranked system vs.
>       approval. Remember, you have an interest in the mechanics of
>       voting and have practiced doing ranking. Everybody else
>       will experience it as a tedious pain.
>     - my gut tells me that Condorcet is more vulnerable to strategic
>       twists than Approval. But that could be because I don't get it.

Anyone (who has any secondary preferences) can do a ranked ballot just  
as easily as traditional ballot.  They don't have to think to  
themselves "how much *more* do I like Candidate A over Candidate B?"   
They only have to decide "If it's between A and B, I prefer A.   
Alternately, if it's between B and C, I prefer B."  Naturally that  
means that if it's between A and C, this voter prefers A.

Even if the voter has no secondary preference, all he/she has to do is  
marked their chosen candidate with number 1 (although any number would  
do, since all unmarked candidates are tied for last place on any  
single ballot).

All Condorcet asks you (and the other voters) is to consider your  
contingency vote and IF there is no cycle, Condorcet will resolve the  
choice between any given pair of candidates exactly as a traditional  
vote-for-one election would.  Everyone's vote has equal weight (unlike  
it would with Range) and the election treats your vote as such.

UNLESS there is a cycle (which I maintain is rare), there are no funny  
surprizes that "Gee, A clearly would be B, but when C entered the  
race, somehow B wins."  That's what we're trying to avoid with IRV,  
but we know, not just theoretically but in reality (Burlington 2009)  
that IRV fails that very objective.

--

r b-j                  rbj at audioimagination.com

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."