[EM] Legacy IRV limitations

[Richard, the VoteFair guy]

My response to Michael's second paragraph below is admittedly a "rant" 
that's intended to reveal insights about what's going on under the 
surface of election-method reform in the U.S., especially in Oregon.  In 
other words, what I've written in response to Michael's second paragraph 
is not directed at Michael.

On 12/17/2023 9:50 AM, Michael Garman wrote:
 > I wouldn’t know as I’m not affiliated with the RCVRC.

To Michael: Thank you for this clarification, and for taking time to 
educate me about the lack of official collaboration between RCVRC and 
FairVote.  Also, I'm very pleased you are helping NYC to adopt ranked 
choice ballots!

 > It’s extremely shortsighted of you to keep letting the perfect be the
 > enemy of the good. Attacking FairVote as part of a conspiracy instead of
 > offering constructive criticism to the most powerful election reformers
 > out there is going to ensure that we remain stuck with FPTP. You have no
 > evidence for your claims of any kind of collusion — because it doesn’t
 > exist.

For those who don't know, here in Oregon a group of election-method 
reformers in the city of Eugene are strongly pushing STAR voting, with 
lots of financial assistance.

One of their two valid criticisms of IRV is that current versions of IRV 
software do not allow giving the same preference level to two or more 
candidates.  They push STAR voting by saying STAR ballots do allow this 
kind of marking.  And they point to "spoiled ballots" in real IRV 
elections as evidence of the importance of this issue (even though an 
overvote is just one way in which a ranked choice ballot can be 
categorized as "spoiled").

If the FairVote organization were more honest about the importance of 
being able to rank multiple candidates at the same preference level, the 
fans of STAR voting would not have been able to push IRV fans into 
becoming STAR fans.

History:  Interestingly the primary financial backer behind STAR voting 
started out as an IRV fan.  I know this because about 20 years ago a 
friend in Eugene sent me a newspaper clipping from the Eugene newspaper 
in which that person, the son of a university president there, was 
promoting "instant runoff voting."  The friend in Eugene had heard me 
promoting to her and other friends in Eugene what are now called "ranked 
choice ballots."  Back then I lived in Corvallis, but traveled to 
dances, and to dates, in Eugene so often that some people in Eugene 
thought I lived there.  FWIW, I also promoted "order-of-preference 
ballots" to friends and dancers in Corvallis, where IRV was adopted 
later after I moved away.

My opposition is against the misinformation about so-called "overvotes."

I'm not opposed to IRV.  In fact I've helped to push IRV through the 
Oregon legislature.

For about two decades I've been offering constructive criticism to IRV 
fans and the leader of FairVote, but my suggestions are regarded as not 
important enough for them to seriously consider.

I've also taught lots of people in Oregon about the unfair results of 
IRV in Burlington VT and the recent special election in Alaska.

Yet instead of trying to block IRV I'm promoting the idea of adopting 
IRV and then, later, improving the counting software.

That weakness of IRV can be solved easily by eliminating "pairwise 
losing candidates" when they occur.  I'm well aware that this refinement 
will take longer to remedy compared to correctly counting overvotes.

In the meantime the Oregon fans of STAR voting criticize IRV as being 
vulnerable to the "center squeeze effect."  Yet this effect will 
disappear from IRV when pairwise losing candidates are eliminated when 
they occur.

So I find myself attacking misrepresentations -- basically "white lies" 
-- from both the FairVote organization and the fans of STAR voting (who 
loosely are affiliated with The Equal Vote Coalition), both of whom are 
well-funded.  To be balanced here, The Election Science Foundation also 
promotes misrepresentations.

To repeat, I'm not attacking the organizations.  I'm attacking their 
misrepresentations.

I realize that sometimes those organizations are trying to keep things 
simple when they talk to voters.  Yet some of those simplifications 
become oversimplifications and misrepresentations.

It's important to understand that the fans of STAR voting wouldn't be 
getting so many signatures on their current statewide petition to adopt 
STAR voting for all of Oregon if RCVRC and FairVote had not been so 
adamant that "overvotes" cannot be counted.

And STAR fans wouldn't have been able to get enough signatures on their 
petition to adopt STAR voting for Eugene elections if they hadn't 
co-opted IRV fans (including promoting STAR as a "better kind of ranked 
choice voting").  That Eugene-specific petition-based referendum has 
already qualified to be on Eugene's spring 2024 ballot.

To clarify, I'm not opposed to Eugene adopting STAR voting; rather I'm 
opposed to STAR fans trying to block the statewide ranked choice ballot 
initiative on the November 2024 ballot.  They are doing this by pushing 
a separate statewide STAR petition.

That's a misrepresentation because they criticize ranked choice voting 
as if overvotes cannot be counted, even though the already-scheduled 
November 2024 referendum avoids any mention of "overvotes" so that the 
wording is compatible with future software.

FairVote's myth about overvotes not being countable has contributed to 
this attack against IRV.

Yes, I'm frustrated.  And I'm angry.  I've been promoting ranked choice 
ballots for three decades, although previously under the names 
"order-of-preference ballots" and "1-2-3 ballots."

Finally Portland Oregon has adopted IRV for the mayoral election and STV 
for city council elections.  (In spite of opposition from a fan of STAR 
voting who was on the charter amendment committee.)

And the Oregon state legislature has passed a ranked-choice-voting 
referendum that will appear statewide on the November ballot -- with no 
mention of the word "overvote" in the counting details, because of my 
influence.  (Fans of STAR voting also testified against this bill.)

The misinformation coming from FairVote, RCVRC, STAR fans, and the 
Election Science Foundation is undermining support for Portland's 
reforms and the statewide adoption of ranked choice ballots for electing 
our governor and our members of Congress.

I'm not intending to suggest there is any conspiracy between the 
organizations.  Yet I do suspect that some of the donations going to 
these organizations would decline if they were to increase cooperation 
and avoid misrepresentation.

I continue to believe that the Oregon legislature being the first state 
legislature to vote in favor of allowing voters to adopt ranked choice 
ballots for key Oregon elections is a hugely beneficial tipping point 
for civilization!  (Other states that have adopted ranked choice voting 
have had to do it by gathering signatures on petitions.)

My anger is directed at the people who undermine this progress toward 
adopting IRV as a stepping stone to better software.

That better software will correctly count mythical "overvotes."

And eventually it will avoid easy-to-avoid IIA (independence of 
irrelevant alternatives) failures -- which get criticized as either 
Condorcet failures or "center squeeze effect" failures.

My request to all election-method reform organizations and individuals 
is to please stop the misrepresentations, at least to Oregon voters, so 
the November 2024 ranked choice voting referendum passes with support 
from a majority of Oregon voters.

To everyone still reading this far, thank you for reading my rant.

Richard Fobes
The VoteFair guy


On 12/17/2023 9:50 AM, Michael Garman wrote:
> I wouldn’t know as I’m not affiliated with the RCVRC.
> 
> It’s extremely shortsighted of you to keep letting the perfect be the 
> enemy of the good. Attacking FairVote as part of a conspiracy instead of 
> offering constructive criticism to the most powerful election reformers 
> out there is going to ensure that we remain stuck with FPTP. You have no 
> evidence for your claims of any kind of collusion — because it doesn’t 
> exist.
> 
> 
> On Sun, Dec 17, 2023 at 12:35 PM Richard, the VoteFair guy 
> <electionmethods at votefair.org <mailto:electionmethods at votefair.org>> wrote:
> 
>     On 12/16/2023 9:04 PM, Michael Garman wrote:
>      > The Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center is an independent entity
>     fully
>      > unaffiliated with FairVote. Hope this helps!
> 
>     Thank you, Michael, for clarifying that the Ranked Choice Voting
>     Resource Center RCVRC is not officially(!) affiliated with FairVote.
> 
>     Then why does RCVRC have the same misunderstanding that the leader of
>     the FairVote organization has been pushing for decades?
> 
>     Especially, I'd like to understand why RCVRC pushed onto the Portland
>     Oregon election officials the idea that skipping(!) "overvotes" was a
>     recommended option.  That's worse than ignoring the remaining rankings!
> 
>     That skipping option works in Australia where a voter hand-writes a
>     number next to each candidate's name.  (They don't have to worry about
>     "ballot real estate" because there is just one box for each candidate.)
>     But it doesn't make sense here in the U.S. where we mark ovals in
>     "choice" columns.  And where ballot real estate is very important.
> 
>     (In fact, the upcoming statewide referendum for Oregon adopts RCV for
>     just a limited number of contests because election officials were
>     concerned that adopting it would cause Oregon ballots to require more
>     than one sheet of paper.)
> 
>     I see that your website -- RankTheVoteNYC.org -- shows that in your NYC
>     elections "The scanner will reject any ballot where you mark more than
>     one candidate for the same rank  – in other words, if you fill in more
>     than one oval in the same column."
> 
>     Does RCVRC not know that it's easy to correctly count those marks?
>     (Just pair up equivalent ballots and allocate those "paired" ballots in
>     equal numbers to those same-ranked candidates.)
> 
>     Richard Fobes
>     The VoteFair guy
> 
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