[EM] IRV3/AV3

[David L Wetzell]

On Mon, Oct 31, 2011 at 5:59 PM, Andy Jennings
<elections at jenningsstory.com>wrote:

> David,
>
> My strongest feeling about your recently proposed system is that the
> "three" is so arbitrary.
>
> What if there are eight candidates running, and I really like five of
> them?  Then approving three might not be enough.
>

Most people aren't as politically keen as you are.  We need to design rules
for the typical voter, not ourselves.  I think the number of contested
seats plus two is a good rule of thumb...


> I know you said that real elections only seem to have four strong
> candidates, but the current republican primary seems to have at least seven
> totally legitimate candidates in the race.
>

define totally legit?  From a wonk perspective or a hack perspective?
 There's three realistic candidates right now, and a bunch of me
threes/fours/what-nots
.

> Both 2008 primaries were the same way.  Sure, the press is constantly
> trying to whittle it down to about four.  But why should we let the press
> do the whittling?  Shouldn't that be done by the voting system in some way?
>  Should we use a different system for these larger elections?
>

dlw:  It's not just a media thing, it's also a matter of cost-benefit
analysis.  When there's only one winner, it just isn't cost-effective for
there to be lots and lots of candidates.

My point is based on reality as it is, not as I'd like it to be.  We need
to gear our reforms to reality, not our wishful thinking about how
elections ought to be...

>
> If there are only three candidates running, then the AV step does nothing.
>  If there are four candidates running, then the AV step is really
> anti-plurality.
>

dlw: I'm saying that there can be more than three or four candidates on the
ballot, but there tends to be 3 or 4 serious candidates by virtue of
economics of elections.  ..

>
> And as Kathy pointed out, you'd still better tell people that it's not
> safe to put their favorite first.
>

dlw: That'd be silly.  If you do the math, while it's possible that there
could be a non-monotonicity problem in the unlikely event of a close three
way election, it's still less likely than the more typical outcome where it
makes sense to vote your preferences.  And so long as the odds favor the
typical outcome, the possibility of a sour grapes situation are not
consequential.  It does not rationally change voter behavior.

dlw
dlw

>
> ~ Andy
>
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