[EM] IRV vs RCV

[Bob Richard]

James,

In the United States, the name RCV was adopted because some activists 
wanted an umbrella term that would refer to both IRV and STV together -- 
and also not sound too technical. There are both pros and cons to this 
as a political strategy. One of the several motivations was the belief 
that voters and politicians could become accustomed to IRV -- 
politically a much easier reform to win -- and then persuaded to adopt 
STV for the legislative branch later on.

--Bob Richard

------ Original Message ------
From: "James Gilmour" <jgilmour at globalnet.co.uk>
To: "'Rob Lanphier'" <robla at robla.net>; "'Election Methods'" 
<election-methods at lists.electorama.com>
Sent: 12/14/2019 6:26:13 AM
Subject: Re: [EM] IRV vs RCV

>Is RCV (Ranked Choice Voting) really the same as IRV (Instant Run-off Voting)?
>
>IRV (with preferential voting) surely had its origin as a replacement for successive (or top-two) FPTP run-off votes to determine
>the winner in single-winner elections.  This single-winner application of STV preferential voting is known in some parts of the
>world as the Alternative Vote, but that name never caught on in the USA.
>
>Does RCV include multi-winner elections, i.e. STV-PR = preferential voting in multi-member electoral districts?
>
>James Gilmour
>Edinburgh, Scotland
>
>
>>  -----Original Message-----
>>  From: Election-Methods [mailto:election-methods-bounces at lists.electorama.com] On Behalf Of Rob Lanphier
>>  Sent: 14 December 2019 04:39
>>  To: Election Methods <election-methods at lists.electorama.com>
>>  Subject: [EM] IRV vs RCV
>>
>>  Hi folks,
>>
>>  This morning, I updated the FairVote page on Electowiki:
>>  <https://electowiki.org/wiki/FairVote>
>>
>>  ...which was an updated copy of the intro from the Wikipedia article
>>  about FairVote.   They changed their name in 2004 (from Center for
>>  Voting and Democracy), and it's about time we finally updated Electowiki to reflect that.
>>
>>  However, one line got under my skin:
>>  > "in 2004 changed its name to FairVote to reflect its support of such platforms as ranked choice voting (RCV),"
>>
>>  Well, there's a lot of good reasons for them to change their name, but reflecting their support for "ranked choice voting"
>>  seemed revisionist to me.  So I disappeared down a rabbit hole to make my edits to the Electowiki version.
>>
>>  If you're interested in the details, I encourage you to read my longer history on Electowiki, but here's the abbreviated
>>  timeline:
>>  * 1992 - "Center for Proportional Representation" (CPR) is formed
>>  * 1993 - CPR changes its name to "Center for Voting and Democracy" (CVD)
>>  * 1993 - Report published, calling it "preference voting" (in a nod to
>>  Australia)
>>  * 1997 - first use of "Instant Runoff voting" that I could find
>>  * 2000 - http://fairvote.org/irv URL goes live on CVD's website
>>  * 2004 - CVD changes its name to "FairVote"
>>  * 2006 - http://fairvote.org/rcv URL goes live on FairVote's website, in cooperation with the Arizona League of Women
>>  Voters
>>  * 2013 - FairVote starts referring to IRV primarily as "Ranked Choice Votting"
>>
>>  What happened between 2006 and 2013 is left as an exercise for the reader.
>>
>>  At any rate: is this a problem worth worrying about?  Should we just do what all of the cool kids are doing, and start referring
>>  to it as "Ranked Choice Voting"?  I mean, come on, Jennifer Lawrence and Krist Novaselic are on board (ok, since Jennifer
>>  Lawrence was born in the 90s, I have no problem referring to her as a "kid", but Krist Novoselic is older than I am, so should I
>>  be respecting my elders?)
>>
>>  Rob
>>  ----
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