[EM] reply to Kathy Dopp

[David L Wetzell]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Kathy Dopp <kathy.dopp at gmail.com>
To: election-methods at lists.electorama.com
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2011 13:11:44 -0400
Subject: Re: [EM] hello from DLW of "A New Kind of Party":long time
electoral reform enthusiast/iconoclast-wannabe.
>>>>
>>>> 6b. I think that IRV3 can be improved upon by treating the up to three
>>>>> ranked choices as approval votes in a first round to limit the number
of
>>>>> candidates to three then the rankings of the three can be sorted into
10
>>>>> categories and the number of votes in each category can be summarized
at
>>>>> the precinct level.
>>>>>

Great Idea!

dlw: I like to think so...

KD:Although I would reduce the number of approval winners out of the 3
rankings to two (2) rather than to 3 in order to avoid the spoiler
effect that rears it's ugly head in IRV so often whenever there are 3
strong candidates.

dlw: Well, it's not that often that there are 3 strong candidates.
And, there's something to be said for uncertainty as a spice to increase
voter interest in elections.
I think that over time and place that the "spoiler effect" would get
mitigated, not unlike as already happens with FPTP elections that tend to
be competitive, as opposed to what exists in many "more local" elections
that are rarely competitive.

KD:Treating the first round of an IRV election  as an approval election
to reduce the field to two candidates would be a great way to make IRV
fairly count the choices of *all* voters rather than the hopelessly
unfair way IRV counts only some voters' 2nd choices when their 1st
choice is eliminated.

dlw: It's not unfair if the other voters' 1st choices are among the
remaining top candidate...
Fair is not self-evident in practice...  We all tend to see the splinter in
the eye of others' election rules and to ignore the plank in our own
preferred election rules.

KD:I wonder if such a system would also eliminate nonmonotonicity, which
makes IRV fail more of Arrow's fairness criteria even than plurality?
dlw: I think we just got to keep the odds of non-monotonicity low enuf that
it doesn't dysfunctionally affect behavior, which isn't likely since it's
more of a "sour grapes" phenomena...

KD:I would probably support this far fairer system Approval/IRV system
because it would tend to reduce the horrific effects of the Later No
Harm Criteria that often prevents the Condorcet winner from being
elected via the unfair IRV method of counting rank choice ballots.

dlw: rejoice!!!

Kathy Dopp
http://electionmathematics.org
Town of Colonie, NY 12304
"One of the best ways to keep any conversation civil is to support the
discussion with true facts."
"Renewable energy is homeland security."

Fundamentals of Verifiable Elections
http://kathydopp.com/wordpress/?p=174

View some of my research on my SSRN Author page:
http://ssrn.com/author=1451051
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