[EM] triple falsehood of identifying IRV with Hare

[Michael Garman]

It’s interesting to note that some groups affiliated with FairVote prefer
“IRV” to “RCV.” These tend to be groups in Republican states like South
Carolina. Certainly don’t disagree that overall FV has co-opted the term,
but it’s interesting to see where it hasn’t caught on.

On Thu, Apr 18, 2024 at 7:45 PM robert bristow-johnson <
rbj at audioimagination.com> wrote:

>
> Richard,
>
> We know that, historically, Hare was not the first to come up with the
> idea of the Single Transferable Vote.  Perhaps Andreas or Condorcet
> preceded Hare, with that idea.  But Hare is mostly identified with and
> mostly credited with the idea and, I think, named it.  This gave the idea
> legs, which first led to its adoption in Robert's Rules.  I think that's
> accurate.  Hare, being a barrister, gave the idea of STV a legal footing
> that didn't really exist previously.  But the application envisioned was
> for multi-winner elections, to promote proportionality.
>
> We know that it was Ware, an MIT prof, that first came up the idea of
> applying the STV methodology to single-winner elections, essentially what
> we call IRV.
>
> I just think that th e contribution of Hare was more significant and that
> it's reasonable to associate Hare's name with IRV to differentiate that
> method of Ranked-Choice Voting from other methods, namely Condorcet, Borda,
> Bucklin.
>
> I think calling IRV "Hare RCV" is an appropriate semantic to identify the
> common method of RCV and to differentiate it from Condorcet RCV, Borda RCV,
> and Bucklin RCV.  Within these four named classes, each have variants.
> That's when we can get more specific like with "Top-two runoff" for Hare or
> "Ranked Pairs" for Condorcet.
>
> But I also identify with you about a frustration regarding the common use
> of terms.  I am particularly disappointed that the label "RCV" has been
> co-opted by FairVote and allies to mean "IRV" when the latter term lost
> cachet in the U.S. approximately a decade ago.  That is particularly
> dishonest.
>
> Robert
>
> *Powered by Cricket Wireless*
>
> ------ Original message------
> *From: *Richard Lung
> *Date: *Thu, Apr 18, 2024 11:08
> *To: *EM;
> *Cc: *
> *Subject:*[EM] triple falsehood of identifying IRV with Hare
>
> The Hare system is defined as at-large STV/PR like the city elections in
> Cambridge USA.
>
> In three basic ways, it is the opposite of IRV, not in any way similar.
>
> Firstly Hare system is a proportional count; IRV is a majority count.
>
> Secondly, Hare uses at large constituencies. He advocated the exact
> opposite to the Anglo-American single member system or a singlre member
> system like IRV. He proposed one large multi-member system.
>
> Thirdly, any similarity between the preference vote or ranked choice
> vote used by Hare and that used by IRV is contradicted by the opposite
> ways in which they are used. Hare system was an election of quotas (the
> Hare quota) in the order that the electorate chose them.
>
> The IRV ranked choice is no such thing. IRV uses an opposite sort of
> count, not a proportional count but an elimination count. Hare ranked
> choice is a positive choice of candidates in the voters prefered order,
> reaching the equal threshold of the quota.
>
> IRV gives the voters no control of the order in which the candidates are
> elected. It merely eliminates candidates on a last past the post basis,
> to manufacture a mere majority.
>
> In sum, identifying IRV with Hare is a triple falsification of a
> fundamental nature.
>
> Regards,
>
> Richard Lung.
>
>
>
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