[EM] robla's weekly hangout: 2pm-4pm PDT/PST on Tuesdays

Rob Lanphier roblan at gmail.com
Thu Nov 11 12:53:28 PST 2021


On Thu, Nov 11, 2021 at 9:49 AM Daniel Carrera <dcarrera at gmail.com> wrote:
> I've been a fan of Condorcet for decades but I only discovered Yee diagrams
> recently. I was shocked at how bad IRV is. It's shocking that a candidate can be
> right at the center of the voter distribution and somehow lose.

I was like you when I learned about Yee diagrams.  Apparently, even
Yee was surprised at how badly Hare's method performed in the
simulations:
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2006-April/083434.html

I suspect that those of us who have convinced ourselves that we're
"good at math" AND had also mentally worked out many of the problems
with Hare/IRV have no problem understanding something as clearly and
concisely explained as Yee's work is. But I also think that Yee's work
is an example of people who are "good at math" talking to each other.
Someone who is from a disadvantaged population who is eager to see
proportional mult-winner methods enter the American mainstream might
feel threatened by such sharp (and jagged) criticism of Hare.  It
seems we need to figure out how to communicate Yee's work to a broad
and diverse audience who may be skeptical of the nerd talk.

I deeply appreciate Nicky Case's work:
https://ncase.me/ballot/

I suspect there are many people who discovered Yee's work via Case's
work.  It's incredibly impressive, and helps those with learning
styles that require interactivity.  But I don't think this is enough.
How do we get more people to have the "aha" moment that many of us
here on this mailing list have had?

Rob


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