[EM] Defeat Strength

[robert bristow-johnson]

> On 09/09/2022 5:54 PM EDT James Gilmour <jamesgilmour at f2s.com> wrote:
> 
>  
> Kristofer
> If the last statement in your message below is correct, about how IRV been sold, all I can say is that those responsible have been
> engaged in serious misselling.
> 
> My description, well amplified by you, of how IRV works and is intended to work, is exactly as you set out below.

Well, let's talk about what RCV is intended to accomplish.  And then frame how it's intended to work from that.

You're insisting that it's intended to work according to Hare STV rules because it's intended to work that way.  It's kinda a circular argument.

I'm saying that RCV is intended to work in such a way that accomplishes some well-defined goals.

>  That is because
> IRV, and STV more generally, is a contingency voting system.

I agree with that.  But it failed to work as a contingency voting system in Burlington 2009 and Alaska 2022.

>  It always has been, and it always will be.
> 

But Hare is **not** always that.  However, outside a cycle (which has never happened yet in the U.S. that we know of) Condorcet always has been and always will be.

The reason Hare works so good is that 99.6% of the time it elects the Condorcet winner.  The 0.4% of the time when it doesn't elect the Condorcet winner, the election *must* be a spoiled election.  It fails.

> Yes, that means IRV and STV-PR fail Condorcet and are not monotonic.  But STV does comply with LNHarm, a criterion that is important
> to real voters in real elections.

I haven't met a single pedestrian voter say, "I'm sure glad we have RCV because it satisfies Later No Harm."  Not one.

I get from regular people who like RCV is that they believe that it doesn't force you to evaluate the lesser of evils and vote for that lesser of evils  because your worrying that the greater of evils may be elected.

I get from regular people who like RCV is that they believe it frees them to vote their hopes instead of their fears.

I get from regular people who like RCV is that they believe it prevents the spoiler effect.  That they don't have to worry about a Nader spoiling the election for Gore.

I get from regular people who like RCV is that they believe in levels the playing field between the major party candidates and minor party or independent candidates.  Voters are not discouraged from voting for the candidate they really like out of fear of assisting the candidate they loathe to be elected.

I get from regular people who like RCV is that they believe that if their favorite candidate (marked as first-choice) can't, won't, doesn't get elected, their second-choice vote is counted.

I get from regular people who like RCV is that they believe that it guarantees electing the majority candidate, even when there are 3 or more candidates in the race.  People believe that because RCV boils the election down to two candidate, in which there is always a majority, unless they tie.

That is basically how it is marketed.

--

r b-j . _ . _ . _ . _ rbj at audioimagination.com

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."

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