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

[Ted Stern]

I refer both David Wetzell and Mike Ossipoff to this guide:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

I favor interleaved style with annotation headers and nested ">"
quotation indicators.  Which, according to that article, makes me an
old-fashioned fuddy-duddy.  Nevertheless, I believe it promotes
clarity in long mailing list threads.

Ted

On 04 Nov 2011 12:20:42 -0700, David L. Wetzell wrote:
>
> ---------- 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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