[EM] Steve Eppley's Just-In-Time Withdrawal (JITW)

[Michael Ossipoff]

JITW isn't a method. It's a fix for methods that would otherwise fail FBC.

JITW only works with methods that fail IIAC. Another instance of a
criterion failure making possible something desirable and more
important.

Here's Steve's proposed fix:

After an election, any candidate can withdraw from the election, and
call for a new count of the ballots, with his name deleted from all
the ballots.

I liked JITW, because it saves FBC-failing methods from their FBC failure.   .

For instance, JITW would save traditional unimproved Condorcet (TUC)
and IRV from their FBC failures.

But that doesn't make JITW TUC equal to JITW IRV.  IRV meets CD (and
the stronger Later-No-Harm).

In group-reply e-mail, Steve and I proposed JITW IRV to IRVists. They
rejected it, claiming that it was completely unacceptable to let a
candidate withdraw. They seemed to feel that a candidate's withdrawal,
in JITW, would somehow be a betrayal to the people who'd voted for
that candidate.

We asked, "How so, if that candidate has already lost?"

The withdrawal, on the contrary, would let hir voters help their next
choice (who was eliminated because their vote was on a higher-ranked
loser). It would reassure people that they can safely rank sincerely.
It would avoid IRV's FBC-failure problem.

(Though JITW IRV would be much better than JITW TUC: if someone really
insists on proposing TUC, then at least offer it with JITW.)

Mike Ossipoff