[EM] a response to JQ on IRV3/AV3

[David L Wetzell]

>
>> Or the Progs and Dems could realize, hey, maybe we can become the two
>> dominant parties here by not doing that sort of thing...
>>
>
> Not a motivation for the Dems, who already are.
>

Most Dems, possibly not their leaders, would prefer to have the other major
party be Progs than the current Pub party.   This would make the center
tilt to the left economically, rather than to the right.

>
>>> If you're about to argue that Dem voters wouldn't do that and risk
>>> electing a Republican... remember that that same argument would refute any
>>> importance at all for the LNH criterion. It may be correct that LNH doesn't
>>> matter - but that's not how FairVote thinks.
>>>
>>
>> I don't know how FairVote thinks.  I think they have a product and they
>> market it differently towards different audiences.  To electoral egg-heads,
>> they've pitched LNH as important.  Whether or not 100% LNH is really a hill
>> they'd be willing to die on is an open question, IMO.
>>
>
> Well, clearly not, because they've explicitly said that Condorcet's LNH
> failures are somehow less problematic than Bucklin's. Makes no sense at
> all... but even as such, it shows that they're willing to talk nonsense if
> it suits them, which is not a die-on-the-hill attitude.
>

I think more down-to-earth practical considerations matter a lot more than
Condorcet winners or LNH or what-not.  In the end, democracy is a function
of habits and rules and the habits matter a lot more than the rules, albeit
changes in habits can and do lead to changes in rules.

As I've learned from Rob Richie, IRV(when all options are ranked) tends to
produce the Condorcet winner most of the time.  The long and short is that
it already is the winner in US electoral reform among alternatives to FPTP
because of its first-mover and marketing advantages.  This list is unlikely
to change that.

>
>
>>
>> I think I trust that in a system that uses a mix of single-winner and PR
>> rules that the competition between the top two parties will be less
>> cut-throat and subject to such a low-blow as clone-spawning.
>> But the real issue here is the future attitude of FairVote to IRV3/AV3
>> and I'm prone to be optimistic on account of the practical value from
>> getting the vote-counting done faster...
>>
>
> Well, you'd also have to worry about the following:
> 1. People support using IRV3/AV2 (As Kathy Dopp already did in another
> thread)
> 2. They successfully (and correctly) argue that that's better than
> IRV3/AV3 for honest results.
> 3. Then you'd have a serious LNH problem, and all of FairVote's LNH
> arguments apply pretty much directly.
>

dlw: I'd label Dopp's preferred method as IRV2/AV3, which really isn't IRV.
 IRV works rather well with 3 candidates.  It just doesn't sustain a
competitive 3-way political system.  The system will still tend to readjust
so we continue to have two dominant parties.  It'll likely be two different
dominant parties and that's okay.

For if you believe something is right then you're willing to be
self-sacrificial for it.  And it shouldn't matter so much that you get "the
right people" into power.  If those who are in power must accommodate you
to remain in power from henceforth then that's enough.  This is the
politics of Gandhi, as I see it.  It makes me less perfectionistic about
electoral reofrm.

dlw

>
> JQ
>
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