[EM] Legacy IRV limitations
Greg Dennis
greg.dennis at voterchoicema.org
Mon Dec 18 11:17:49 PST 2023
Richard, I don't work for or represent FairVote, but I'd like to correct
some claims and seek citations for others:
Overvotes cannot be counted, and it's not worth attempting to count them
I have not seen any FairVote claim that overvotes cannot in theory be
counted. To the extent FairVote made any related claim, it is likely a
truthful claim about the practical reality: no certified tabulation
software exists that is capable of counting them. For example, the only
options in Dominion's Democracy Suite are to either truncate the ballot as
soon as an overvote is encountered or to skip over the overvote to the next
ranking.
The winner in Burlington VT was the correct winner.
There being no universally agreed upon meaning of "correct winner," that
statement cannot be a "misrepresentation," only an opinion. If there were
such a meaning, this list, whose purpose it is to understand and balance
the various criteria, would have no need to exist.
Electing the Condorcet winner is not important, and Condorcet methods are
> not worth considering
That's just not true. As you know from the Zoom meeting with Deb Otis,
FairVote does consider the Condorcet criterion important, which is why
they collect
and publish data
<https://fairvote.org/resources/data-on-rcv/#condorcet-winners> on how
often IRV elects the Condorcet winner. Furthermore, they have "considered"
Condorcet methods, as evidenced by their various pieces on Condorcet and
other alternative methods (example
<https://fairvote.org/archives/alternatives-to-rcv/>). It would be fair to
say that they do not place as high a level of importance on the criterion
as you and others do, but I don't think it's fair to say that they consider
the criterion unimportant or not even worth consideration.
Ranked choice voting software must be backwards compatible with prior
> elections in Australia.
I do not know the source of this claim and have never heard or read anyone
from FairVote state this. If you have a source, I'd be glad to read it.
Thanks,
Greg
On Mon, Dec 18, 2023 at 1:36 PM Richard, the VoteFair guy <
electionmethods at votefair.org> wrote:
> On 12/17/2023 6:30 PM, Michael Ossipoff wrote:
> > "Ballots that do not help voters’ top choices win count for their next
> > choice."
> >
> > That's the 2nd sentence about RCV at FairVote's website.
>
> I agree with Michael Garman that this is not a significant
> misrepresentation from FairVote.
>
> In particular, it's not the significant(!) kind of misrepresentation I
> had in mind when I started this thread.
>
> Examples of what I believe are significant misrepresentations from the
> FairVote organization are:
>
> * Overvotes cannot be counted, and it's not worth attempting to count them
>
> * The candidate with the fewest transferred votes is always the least
> popular candidate
>
> * The winner in Burlington VT was the correct winner
>
> * Electing the Condorcet winner is not important, and Condorcet methods
> are not worth considering
>
> * Ranked choice voting counting rules should use the wording supplied by
> the FairVote organization or the Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center
> (even though that wording is awful, and seemingly worded to make it
> difficult to change to anything better)
>
> * Ranked choice voting software must be backwards compatible with prior
> elections in Australia (even though their ballots require a voter to
> write numbers in a box, and their counting process is based on shortcuts
> that arose to minimize how many times each paper ballot had to be looked
> at)
>
> (There might be others, but the one Michael Ossipoff presents is not one
> of them.)
>
> For comparison, the biggest misrepresentations from the fans of STAR
> voting are (off the top of my head):
>
> * Ranked choice voting is vulnerable to vote splitting (this is a big lie!)
>
> * Ranked choice ballots cannot be counted in ways that are fair (which
> is implied by presenting IRV as if it's the only way to count ranked
> choice ballots)
>
> * Claiming they "officially" support a method for counting ranked choice
> ballots ("Ranked Robin") yet never mentioning that method as a possible
> alternative to IRV (when they villify ranked choice ballots)
>
> * STAR voting is resistant to tactical voting and strategic nomination
> (which ignores the case in which a large minority offers two similar
> candidates and tells their voters to top-rank both of those candidates
> and bottom-rank all other candidates)
>
> * Summability is still important (even though we now have very fast
> fiberoptic speeds instead of slow modem speeds)
>
> * Monotonicity failures should never occur, and are worse than other
> failures (including Condorcet failures)
>
> * Pairwise counting is not important (even though STAR voting's second
> step is to do pairwise counting between the top two)
>
> * STAR voting is a better kind of ranked choice voting
>
> Here are some misrepresentations from the Election Science Foundation:
>
> * Score voting would be a reasonable choice in elections
>
> * Approval voting would be suitable for general elections
>
> * The simplicity of Approval voting justifies not pursuing any method
> that uses ranked choice ballots
>
> * Ranked choice ballots cannot be counted in ways that are fair (by
> presenting IRV as if it were the only option)
>
> (I might be forgetting one or two more.)
>
> Finally here's a misrepresentation that applies to all three organizations:
>
> * Our organization taught the voters in such-and-such city (or state)
> about the evils of vote splitting so our organization's preferred method
> should be adopted in this city (or state) and no other method should be
> considered by the voters or elected officials
>
> I'm pleased to learn (from the discussion between the two Michaels) that
> Rob Richie is no longer the leader of the FairVote organization. He was
> the source of lots of misrepresentation.
>
> About a year or so ago I participated in a three-way Zoom meeting with
> Deb Otis who works at the FairVote organization. I was pleased that she
> did not make any misrepresentations about IRV or STV.
>
> However, I disagree with her claim that correctly counting overvotes is
> not worth the extra effort needed. Besides being an issue about spoiled
> ballots, counting "overvotes" also allows a voter to rank their
> most-disliked candidate lower than all other candidates when there are
> just 6 choice rankings and more than 6 candidates (which affects ballot
> real estate, which election officials regard as very important).
>
> Also, I disagree with her claim that the failure in Burlington was
> acceptable because it was just one election out of about 400 elections.
> (This was before Alaska's special election that also had a Condorcet
> failure.)
>
> I'll clarify that I've softened my opinion about Condorcet failures.
> I'll accept a few such failures if the election method gains significant
> other kinds of advantages.
>
> However, I strongly believe that when IRV eliminations reach the top
> three candidates, the presence of a pairwise losing candidate (who would
> lose both one-on-one contests against the other two candidates) should
> not cause the majority-supported candidate to lose.
>
> Typically I shorten this point by saying that pairwise losing candidates
> should be eliminated when they occur. Yet because Michael Ossipoff
> likes to jump on wording-based issues, I'll clarify that I really don't
> care about the exact order of elimination of the candidates who get
> eliminated prior to the top-three round.
>
> Getting back to my main point, my hope is that the people leading the
> three main election-method organizations (FairVote, STAR ..., ESF)
> recognize that making misrepresentations undermines our goal of ending
> "first past the post" (academically known as "plurality voting").
>
> And I'll repeat my specific request to please(!) avoid
> misrepresentations that might block the state-legislature-approved(!)
> referendum for ranked choice voting that will be on Oregon's 2024
> November election ballot.
>
> Richard Fobes
> The VoteFair guy
>
>
> On 12/17/2023 6:30 PM, Michael Ossipoff wrote:
> > "Ballots that do not help voters’ top choices win count for their next
> > choice."
> >
> > That's the 2nd sentence about RCV at FairVote's website.
> >
> > To reach that website, google "FairVote, Ranked-Choice Voting".
> >
> > On Sun, Dec 17, 2023 at 8:12 PM Michael Garman
> > <michael.garman at rankthevote.us <mailto:michael.garman at rankthevote.us>>
> > wrote:
> >
> > I’m quite familiar with it…which is why I am skeptical of your claim…
> > On Sun, Dec 17, 2023 at 8:11 PM Michael Ossipoff
> > <email9648742 at gmail.com <mailto:email9648742 at gmail.com>> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sun, Dec 17, 2023 at 17:03 Michael Garman
> > <michael.garman at rankthevote.us
> > <mailto:michael.garman at rankthevote.us>> wrote:
> >
> > > " RCV, what FairVote is selling, is promoted with the
> > intentional lie your vote for Middle over Worst is
> > guaranteed to help Middle against Worst if Favorite doesn’t
> > win."
> >
> > Where does this claim appear from FairVote at all? Oops!
> > Michael Ossipoff hasn't produced any evidence.
> >
> >
> > Only throughout FarVote’s promotional material.
> >
> > “…hasn’t produced any evidence”?
> >
> > I hadn’t yet been asked for it. I thought that you’d have
> > already seen FairVote’s promotional material.
> >
> > But, since you evidently haven’t, then I’ll post an example
> > here. …one of many instances of FairVote’s repetition of that
> lie.
> >
> >
> > I'd appreciate it if you at least did me the courtesy of
> > spelling my surname correctly. I know it's hard to find --
> > not like it's in my email address, display name, or anything
> > of the sort.
> >
> > On Sun, Dec 17, 2023 at 8:01 PM Michael Ossipoff
> > <email9648742 at gmail.com <mailto:email9648742 at gmail.com>>
> wrote:
> >
> > You might want to specify what you’re talking about.
> >
> > Oops!!! Michael Garmin forget to say what my unsupported
> > claim was !
> >
> > On Sun, Dec 17, 2023 at 16:56 Michael Garman
> > <michael.garman at rankthevote.us
> > <mailto:michael.garman at rankthevote.us>> wrote:
> >
> > You might wish to consider substantiating your
> > claims instead of forwarding them to the list
> > without backing.
> > On Sun, Dec 17, 2023 at 7:54 PM Michael Ossipoff
> > <email9648742 at gmail.com
> > <mailto:email9648742 at gmail.com>> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > ---------- Forwarded message ---------
> > From: *Michael Ossipoff* <email9648742 at gmail.com
> > <mailto:email9648742 at gmail.com>>
> > Date: Sun, Dec 17, 2023 at 16:14
> > Subject: Re: [EM] Legacy IRV limitations
> > To: Michael Garman
> > <michael.garman at rankthevote.us
> > <mailto:michael.garman at rankthevote.us>>
> >
> >
> > The falsity of FairVote’s lie is well-known
> > among the electoral-reform community.
> >
> > The term “Know-It-All” is properly used to refer
> > to someone making incorrect statements. Oops!!!
> > You forgot to specify the incorrect statement.
> >
> > “The perfect is the enemy of the good”?
> >
> > You evidently think fraud is good.
> >
> > I wasn’t criticizing STE. I was criticizing
> fraud.
> >
> > …intentional lying to sell a product.
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sun, Dec 17, 2023 at 16:05 Michael Garman
> > <michael.garman at rankthevote.us
> > <mailto:michael.garman at rankthevote.us>> wrote:
> >
> > Sanctimonious know-it-alls like you who let
> > the perfect be the enemy of the good are the
> > greatest obstacle to any progress whatsoever.
> > On Sun, Dec 17, 2023 at 7:04 PM Michael
> > Ossipoff <email9648742 at gmail.com
> > <mailto:email9648742 at gmail.com>> wrote:
> >
> > I didn’t say that
> > Successive-Topcount-Elimination (STE) is
> > a fraud. I said that RCV is a fraud.
> >
> > RCV isn’t STE. RCV, what FairVote is
> > selling, is promoted with the
> > intentional lie your vote for Middle
> > over Worst is guaranteed to help Middle
> > against Worst if Favorite doesn’t win.
> >
> > i.e. FairVote is selling RCV as
> > Condorcet. RCV is a nonexistent
> > Condorcet-properties method being
> > fraudulently sold by FairVote.
> >
> > Thus, RCV is a fraud.
> >
> > Sorry, but I can’t abide dishonesty.
> > Fraud shouldn’t be supported.
> >
> > Don’t let a fraudulently-promoted
> > product be successfully sold to the
> > people of Oregon.
> >
> >
> > On Sun, Dec 17, 2023 at 15:39 Michael
> > Garman <michael.garman at rankthevote.us
> > <mailto:michael.garman at rankthevote.us>>
> > wrote:
> >
> > Oh come on Michael. You can’t claim
> > the system itself is “fraud” because
> > you dislike one of the many
> > organizations that advocate for it.
> >
> > On Sun, Dec 17, 2023 at 6:37 PM
> > Michael Ossipoff
> > <email9648742 at gmail.com
> > <mailto:email9648742 at gmail.com>>
> wrote:
> >
> > Yes, many RCV opponents were
> > formerly RCV advocates…until
> > they found out that they’d been
> > lied to by FairVote.
> >
> > As I often say, RCV’s worst
> > problem is FairVote.
> >
> > Lying to sell something is
> > called fraud.
> >
> > RCV is an intentional fraud, &
> > yes, people don’t like that when
> > they find out.
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sun, Dec 17, 2023 at 12:20
> > Richard, the VoteFair guy
> > <electionmethods at votefair.org
> > <mailto:
> electionmethods at votefair.org>> wrote:
> >
> ...
> ----
> Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list
> info
>
--
*Greg Dennis, Ph.D. :: Policy Director*
Voter Choice Massachusetts
e :: greg.dennis at voterchoicema.org
p :: 617.835.9161
w :: voterchoicema.org <https://www.voterchoicema.org/>
:: Follow us on Facebook <https://www.facebook.com/yeson2rcv> and Twitter
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