[EM] Hay guys, look at this...

[robert bristow-johnson]

> On 02/17/2023 1:13 PM EST KenB <kdbearman at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> On 2/17/2023 10:48 AM, robert bristow-johnson wrote:
> 
> > >  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qnSE5wPa1y7kY_zblLRwxc2Ol1QmrUs/view 
> > > 
> > ______________________________
> > 
> > (d)(1) Additional tabulation. Upon tabulation of the ballots, if no candidate receives a majority of first-ranked preferences, the ballots shall be tabulated again by paired comparison and examining every possible paired comparison. In each paired comparison, the presiding officer shall note the winning candidate in each paired comparison or if there is instead a tie.
> > (2) Condorcet winner. If a candidate is the winning candidate in every
> > paired comparison, the candidate shall be declared the winner of the election.
> > (3) No Condorcet winner. If there is no candidate that is the winning candidate in every paired comparison, then the candidate having the plurality of first-ranking preferences is declared the winner.
> > ______________________________
> = = = = =
>  [KB] Do I understand paragraph (3) correctly: If there's no Condorcet winner, then you default to a First Past the Post winner?
>  

Yes, given current usage data in the U.S., this is what happens about 0.2% of the RCV elections.  Out of over 500 RCV elections in the U.S., *only* *once* did the election demonstrate a cycle.  And that was Minneapolis Ward 2 in 2021.  (And BTW, Nicolaus Tideman analyzed this and thinks that this evidence of a cycle is inconclusive because they had only 3 ranking levels and 5 or 6 candidates.  But, as the ballots were marked and assuming none of the voters would have ranked anyone below 3rd-choice if there was more ranking levels, then it was a cycle.)

Now, in my opinion, the problem here becomes a political problem that might eclipse the technical problem.  The technical problem is about how to keep any cycle from being gamed or incentivizing tactical/strategic voting in future elections.  This is a quite esoteric technical problem and I would invite Markus or Nic or anyone else with their Condorcet-consistent method to explain it to a bunch of legislators, let alone the public.

We explain Condorcet this way: If a simple majority of voters mark their ballots preferring Candidate A over Candidate B, then Candidate B is not elected.

Why *should* Candidate B be elected?  The IRV people twist themselves into pretzels trying to answer that.  (Their answer is either "we've been doing it this way for several decade and IRV is well tested" or, when challenged that the "well tested" has shown failure in 3 out of 500 cases, then they trot out the old "Candidate Milquetoast" argument, saying, essentially that IRV saved us from getting Montroll in 2009 or Begich in 2022 because they are both milquetoast and "kiss the baby" candidates.  A real horseshit argument.)

So, in the less than 0.2% of the cases where it is impossible to satisfy the simple ethical principle of the Condorcet criterion, then we have to explain to the public how and why the candidate who was elected was chosen.  What is it about this winning candidate that makes him/her a more appropriate choice for election to office than any other candidate in the Smith set?  What, that the public can see and discern, indicates electoral support?  How would we answer that question?

That California bill (from a previous session, I believe it's a dead bill now) used the Hare IRV winner as the contingency winner if no Condorcet winner. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB2161  I think that, for less than 0.2%, defending this choice over plurality is difficult.

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

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."

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