[EM] A simple thought experiment.

[David L Wetzell]

> 2013/5/29 David L Wetzell <wetzelld at gmail.com>
>
>> Let's agree tentatively that Alternatives to IRV don't really outshine
>> IRV unless the number of competitive candidates exceeds 4.
>>
>
> JQ:I think that's false (the number should be 2.5), but OK, let's see
> where you're going with this.
>

dlw:If there is learning and voters(like the GOP in Burlington) learn to
vote strategically when their major party candidate is too far from the
center then we'd get w. IRV the CW, even with 3 or 4 competitive candidates
 in the cases with a weak CW.  Like you said, there's a folk theorem that
there's strong Nash Equilibrium with a CW winner with IRV, it might not be
exhaustively true but it pokes holes in the value-added of alternatives when
the number of competitive candidates is not so high.

>
>

>> Also, the bottom line is that when you're advocating for a change in
>> which single-winner election rule alternative ought to be used, it's not
>> right to dump the burden of proof on IRV advocates.  The amount of time
>> spent marketing IRV already is a sunk cost and so the burden of proof for
>> switching ought to lie on the challengers not the defenders of the status
>> quo progressive electoral alternative to fptp.
>>
>
> JQ:As to the burden of proof, I agree with you. In my opinion, that burden
> has been met.
>

dlw: Not with Burlington and conditional on the expected number of
competitive candidates not rising a lot, not so much...


> It's still good to avoid infighting, and I'd still vote for IRV out of
> solidarity, but if I were writing a constitution and I had to choose
> between, say, IRV and real runoffs, I'd choose the latter in a blink.
>

It'd depend on the import of the election.  I want our prez election to
have 3 stages...
dlw

>
>> dlw
>>
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