[EM] reply to a reply to IRV args by Mike Ossipoff

[David L Wetzell]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: MIKE OSSIPOFF <nkklrp at hotmail.com>
To: <election-methods at electorama.com>
Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2011 21:12:09 +0000
Subject: [EM] Reply to a few IRV arguments

I'm sorry, I can't find the message that I'm replying to. It was by an
apparent IRV
advocate.

He said that claims about IRV's problems are "theoretical" or
"hypothetical", and have never
been observed. Of course that isn't true.

In Australia, where IRV has been in use for a long time, various people
have reported to us on EM
that it isn't at all unusual for voters to bury their favorite to top-rank
a compromise, so as not to
"waste their vote". Sound familiar? That's what is done in Plurality, in
this country, by everyone who
doesn't consider the Democrat and Republican the best.

dlw: Remind me, are voters required to rank all of the candidates in both
elections?
It may still happen, but it happens less with IRV.

MO:And, in Australia, as here, there remains a two-party system, a
political system with two large parties who
always win. Here, that's the result of Plurality. Given the way people vote
in Australia, and the
reason that they give, that might be why Australia, too, has a two-party
system.

dlw: Not everyone thinks having a two-party dominated system is bad.  Good
luck getting electoral reforms in a two-party dominated system tilting to a
single-party dominated system that level the playing fiield for all parties
100%.

MO:Theoretical or hypothetical? IRV's compromise-elimination problem is
blatantly obvious:

All it requires is that candidate-strength (favoriteness) taper gradually
away from the middle sincere CW.

That's hardly an unusual state of affairs.

dlw: Remind me what CW is?
I view voter preferences as endogenous, more so than exogenous and fuzzy.

I don't think we need to nail the center, so much as we need to have it
moved via extra-political cultural change-oriented activities.  This lets
me deemph these purported flaws in IRV.

MO:Under those conditions, eliminations begin at the extremes, and
transfers send votes inwards, till the candidates
flanking that middle CW accumulate enough votes to easily eliminate hir.

We'll never know how often that happens unless the raw rankings are
available from IRV elections. But it
must happen quite often, given the common state of affairs that is its
reqirement.

Andy himself implied an admission that voters in IRV should be advised that
sometimes it's necessary
to bury their favorite, to top-rank a compromise.

dlw: Some may think that this is wise.  IRV doesn't leave no party behind.
But they'd be voting like that a lot more often with plurality.
Ultimately, though if folks want to change things, they need to do more
than try to get the right party into power.

MO:Do we want a method that needs that?  Do we want that when there are
plenty of methods that don't force
that favorite-burial strategy?

dlw: Do most people care?  Not really.
At the end of the day, it's just not that key of a facet of an electoral
rule.
IRV is a signicant improvement over FPTP.
It's got a first-mover and a marketing edge over all other alternatives to
FPTP in the US.
There is no self-evident oft-used alternative.  You all proffer four
possibilities.
That's not going to help rally folks around electoral reform.

IRV+(PR in "More local" elections) is a sound prescription for making the
US's political system a lot better, especially when coupled with even more
critical political cultural changes, like what #OWS is trying to accomplish.
This is what's going to be on the front-burner and so do you want to get
behind it or do you want to try shoot its tires?  Cuz, unless you got a
clear alternative that is easy to market to US voters, the consequence will
be to retain FPTP in the US for even longer.
dlw

Mike Ossipoff
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