[EM] More non-altruistic attacks on IRV usage.

[robert bristow-johnson]

On 11/22/11 4:57 PM, David L Wetzell wrote:
> Aye, and that still looks better than a two-stage with a 40% 
> cutoff(what's in place now) or FPTP.
> If they had stuck with IRV in Burlington, the perceived flaws would 
> have worked themselves out.
> In the US, three-way close races are not common and can be mitigated 
> in other ways, such as are already at work with FPTP.
the problem with both IRV or one of the "other ways" to mitigate a 3-way 
race (such as a delayed runoff), is that, in the Burlington 2009 
example, both methods send the wrong pair of candidates to the final 
runoff.  and it's because of opacity below the current or promoted 
1st-choice vote.  at least with IRV, the information is collected to 
know one's 2nd or 3rd choices, but the method ignores that information 
as long as one's 1st choice remains.

>     On Tue, Nov 22, 2011 at 3:52 PM, Jameson Quinn
>     <jameson.quinn at gmail.com <mailto:jameson.quinn at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     The primary anti-IRV example people use is Burlington, with only 3
>     major candidates.
>
there was a 4th candidate (Independent Dan Smith) who was no slouch and 
got a lot of votes, but someone had to come in 4th.

the real reason IRV failed in Burlington in 2009, is that it did not 
elect the Condorcet winner when there was a clear CW.  the GOP will not 
admit to the real reason that IRV failed because their candidate was the 
FPTP winner.  my question to them was that if IRV only works well when 
it also elects the FPTP winner, then why bother with it?  of course, the 
purpose of IRV was that sometimes the plurality winner was not the most 
democratically chosen winner, which is why we adopted IRV in the first 
place.  we *had* to expect that eventually the IRV winner would be 
different, that was the point.

the anti-IRV Democrats (and they are the reason that IRV was repealed in 
2010) also missed the point.  what they returned us to is even worse and 
serves the political interests of the Dems even less *unless* (and this 
will be decided in less than a month) the Progs decide not to field a 
candidate for mayor this year.  but if the Progs put forth a candidate 
and we end up with Mayor Forty-one Percent (the GOP), the Progs will 
blame the anti-IRV Dems and the Dems will blame the Progs (for running a 
candidate and splitting the vote).  the GOP have the 11th Commandment, 
while we liberals have a circular firing-squad.

>         dlw: All analysis shows that the perceived problems with IRV
>         are seriously attenuated with only 3 candidates.
>

why 3?  the issue with SF is that the number of ranking levels is only 3 
(so that the ballot is totally opaque to voter preference below the 3rd 
level), but their ballot access laws are so lax that they get something 
like 20 candidates.  and 20 ranking levels takes up too much real estate 
on the ballot.  but if the 3 candidates that you like best are not among 
the contenders (and how should you know that in advance?), you might 
feel a bit disenfranchised when you find out that, due to ranking depth 
(or the lack thereof) you were unable to place a vote regarding the 
candidates that really *were* in contention.  in SF, this 
"disenfranchisement" argument has some truth to it, but when it was 
co-opted by the anti-IRV Burlingtonians, it was totally bogus.  and what 
they returned us to is essentially the same as IRV with only one level 
(your 1st preference) of ranking.

in Burlington, we had 5 declared candidates in 2009 and 5 levels to rank 
them.

On 11/22/11 12:38 PM, David L Wetzell wrote:
> http://politeaparty.blogspot.com/2011/11/free-and-fair-elections-and-their.html 
>
>
> They're trying to end the use of IRV in SF.
> Obviously, they're concerned about non-monotonicity or that the 
> Condorcet candidate is not guaranteed...

and my argument with this (that while it doesn't *guarantee* electing 
the Condorcet winner, IRV will often do that because all the CW need to 
do is make it to the final round and then the CW will win the IRV 
election) is the same as it's been when Rob Richie made that case to 
me:  It's the same as the use of the "Electoral College" (a term not 
found in the U.S. Constitution) in electing the U.S. president.  Most of 
the time the E.C. will elect the popular vote winner and then we say 
"gee, the E.C. did a pretty good job."  But when the electoral and 
popular vote disagree, it *never* makes the election look more 
legitimate.  We *never* say "gee, I'm sure glad we have that Electoral 
College to save us from the popular will of the electorate" unless we do 
so for political convenience (like the Bush supporters in 2000).

So then, why bother to have the E.C.?  If we know what the popular vote 
is, and if the E.C. only does a good job when it elects the candidate 
with the popular majority, then why not just elect the candidate with 
the popular majority.

Apply the same reasoning to IRV vs. Condorcet.  If IRV does such a good 
job when it elects the CW and does a questionable job otherwise, why not 
just elect the CW since that is the stated metric of a good result?  If, 
with the ranked ballot, we can determine the CW, why bother with IRV?

lastly, to comment about the blog:

"The complaint that the alternative voting method makes elections 
unpredictable is highly revealing.  These strategists, consultants and 
pundits make a mockery of free and fair elections.  The implicit 
assumption of their argument should be held in the highest contempt by 
supporters of free elections, namely, that elections should be predictable."

i totally agree with this sentiment, but it does not excuse the 
particular "alternative voting method" when it elects the wrong 
candidate as IRV did in Burlington in 2009.  the reason to elect the CW 
when one exists (and the CW likely will exist, if we extract that 
information from the voters with a ranked ballot, and certainly did in 
Burlington in 2006 and 2009) is because of the converse problem.  if you 
elect to office anyone other than the CW (even if they are the plurality 
of 1st-choice winner or the IRV winner), then you have elected to office 
a candidate when the majority of the electorate explicitly marked their 
ballots that they preferred some other *specific* candidate.  how can 
that ever be democratic?

-- 

r b-j                  rbj at audioimagination.com

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."