[EM] Legacy IRV limitations

[Kristofer Munsterhjelm]

On 2023-12-17 02:35, Richard, the VoteFair guy wrote:

> As a reminder there is a simple way to correctly count such "overvotes." 
>   Just pair up the ballot with equivalent similar ballots during that 
> counting round.  Specifically, if two ballots rank candidates A and B as 
> equally preferred, one of those ballots goes to support candidate A and 
> the other ballot goes to support candidate B (during this counting round).
> 
> Now that we have machines and software to handle the correct counting of 
> "overvotes," this extra "effort" does not impose any significant delay, 
> or any significant increase in electricity to power the computer for a 
> few extra milliseconds.  It does require extra effort from the 
> programmer who writes the code, but that just involves extra effort from 
> one person for a few hours.  (And if they don't know how to write that 
> code they can copy from open-source software that correctly does this 
> counting.)

Or just use fractional balloting, which is simpler to code and doesn't 
need an even number of ballots.

That is, if three ballots vote A=B>C, then A and B's support are both 
increased by 1.5. A computer can even use exact rational numbers to keep 
undesirable tiebreaks from happening.

-km