[EM] IRV variant

[robert bristow-johnson]

On 11/6/11 3:22 PM, MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote:
>
> I've watched someone vote in a rank-balloting presidential mock 
> election. Though she
> prefers Nader's policies to those of the Democrats, she ranked all of 
> the Democrats
> over Nader.

it depends on how the ranked ballots are tabulated.  i don't see much 
advantage to burying (let alone betraying) your favorite candidate in an 
election using ranked-choice ballot if the method is Condorcet and 
anything approximating non-pathological and non-bizarre circumstances 
exist.  so Nader loses and her second choice counts.


>
> FBC is essential for public elections.

all that is saying is that we would like to get rid of the burden of the 
most common (in my opinion) voting tactic (i think they call it 
"compromising").  that was the whole point in adopting IRV here in 
Burlington VT and in 2009 we found out that it did not remove that 
burden but essentially transferred that burden from the liberal majority 
(who did not have to make a painful choice between Prog and Dem) to a 
large and the most conservative minority (the "GOP Prog-haters").

that group found out after the election that, simply by marking their 
favorite candidate as their first choice (GOP), they *caused* the 
election of their least desired candidate (Prog).  if IRV had survived 
to the current election in 2012, these GOP Prog-haters might be saying 
to themselves: "Sheesh! In this liberal town I gotta choose between 
Liberal and More Liberal, because if I vote for the guy I really like, 
More Liberal gets elected."  (hey guys, can you believe it? the 
Burlington IRV saga is now nearly ending this chapter with the first 
post-IRV mayoral election.  the Dems are caucusing in a week and it's an 
open question of whether the Progs will run a candidate or not.)

>
> My current favorite is MDD, ER-Bucklin (whole)   (where 
> ER-Bucklin(whole) is defined
> as in the electowicki).

why?  any method that fails to elect the CW when one exists is electing 
to office a candidate whom a majority of voters have explicitly marked 
on their ballots that they prefer a different specific candidate for 
office.  how is it democratic to elect Joe Schmoe to office when more of 
us have expressed in the election that we prefer this other guy instead?

>
> It's the Cadillac of FBC methods.
>
naw!  Bucklin is a contrived value system.  and a dinosaur.  and the 
"One Person, One Vote" people (who meaninglessly chanted that slogan as 
their main opposition to IRV) will *really* cut Bucklin down as "one 
person, two (or more) votes" and then say (again falsely) that someone 
was "disenfranchised" by Bucklin.  those arguments are crap of course 
(despite what perhaps Ms. Dopp might say), but the bottom line is that 
Bucklin is not Condorcet compliant and the fundamental problem with any 
non-Condorcet method is, simply, that it does not elect the CW when one 
exists which means a contradiction to Majority Rule (along with the 
*real* meaning of one-person-one-vote).

i think, under anything approximating normal circumstances, when a CW 
exists, electing that CW is just fine regarding FBC.  outside of a 
potential cycle (which would be rare), how does betraying one's favorite 
and bumping up a less-favored candidate (that appears to be more 
electable) over one's favorite help further a voter's political 
interest.  how, under these reasonable normal conditions (CW exists, no 
cycle to worry about), does ranking ranking another candidate over than 
one's favorite keep a voter's "bogeyman" from getting elected?

> Is there an FBC-complying method meets UP and SDSC and that does 
> better by other criteria?
>
> Is there an FBC-complying method that doesn't fail in the Approval 
> bad-example?
>
> ...and maybe that also meets at least 1CM and 3P.
>

too much alphabet soup going on here.

let's just focus on accomplishing Majority Rule with each voter's ballot 
and preference having equal weight in the counting.  if you do that, 
then how do you justify, when a CW exists, ever electing someone other 
than the CW?  Rob Ritchie's justification of IRV over Condorcet with two 
very poor arguments (1. most often IRV elects the CW since all the CW 
need do is get to the IRV final round and 2. perhaps the IRV winner is a 
more democratic result than the CW who may be a mushy centrist with very 
few first-choice rankings) just doesn't cut the mustard.

-- 

r b-j rbj at audioimagination.com

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."