[EM] A conversation with an English woman about IRV

[robert bristow-johnson]

On May 3, 2011, at 9:17 PM, ⸘Ŭalabio‽ wrote:

> 	An English woman came into my work today.  This is very unusual.  I  
> brought up the coming referendum she will miss.  She had no  
> opinion.  I explained that IRV which the English call AV for some  
> crazy reason even though AV is approval voting is a false reform.   
> She gave me a blank stare.
>
> 	Then I brought up that with the new ballots would support  
> Condorcet, which is better than what she call alternative vote.  She  
> had no idea what Condorcet is.  I brought up that the old ballots  
> support the real A V, approval voting which easily beats Plurality  
> and IRV.  She had know idea what Approval voting is.  I said that  
> one votes for as many candidates as one wishes, thus making the  
> system clone-immune.
>
> 	She left.  If she is at all representative of the English as an  
> whole, the English need much instruction about voting methods and  
> are not qualified to vote on this referendum.  That explains why the  
> referendum goes down to defeat for the wrong reasons:
>
> 	IRV will almost certainly loose because of FUD (fear, Uncertainty,  
> and Doubt).  It should go down to defeat because it is still  
> susceptible to Duverger’s Law, is not precinct-summable, costly,  
> and nonmonotonic.
>


it's not just the English.

unfortunately, both the Keep_Plurality_Rule crowd (with their mantra  
"Keep Voting Simple") and the IRV crowd (or whatever acronym used,  
like AV or RCV or PR or STV) muddy the discussion.  i, personally,  
feel that the Approval or Range crowds do too (actually, i think  
Approval Voting is a good way to retain judges and such if the local  
politics is that judges must answer to the public as do politicians).

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.

*everybody* needs to be educated.  the unfortunate thing is that when  
FairVote did the educating, they plugged only IRV as if it was the  
only way to use a ranked-choice ballot to solve the spoiler problem.   
they equated ranked ballot and the STV method of tabulation and that  
falsehood needs to be de-educated out of people.  it was really sad  
that they did that.

--

r b-j                  rbj at audioimagination.com

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."