[EM] triple falsehood of identifying IRV with Hare

[Richard Lung]

Thank you, Robert,

Mathematician Carl Andrae invented a similar system a few years earlier 
than Hare.

Yes, I think the term Single transferable vote comes from Hare. The 
British Columbia Citizens Assembly on Electoral Reform liked he system 
but not the term. Likewise, Joe Rogaly in Parliament for the People, who 
thought STV should be called the Supervote. This to some extent caught 
on: supervote.org.uk

Well, whoever thought he was applying STV methodology to single-winner 
elections was really missing the point that traditional STV cannot be 
applied to single member systems. Because a proportional election (Hare 
STV) is not comparable to an elimination count (IRV).

(It is possible to make STV work in single member elections. That does 
not make them significantly more democratic (in their single member 
strait jackets) but it does show STV can be made a more consistent 
system. (That is the work I have done.)

Rank the Vote has a name for STV/PR. They call it proportional RCV, 
reserving just RCV for IRV. This is consistent as far as it goes. But 
STV already has a muddle of different names being added to it. 
Cumulative voting has given way to "approval" voting, for that matter. I 
don't know it's any worse than changing IRV to RCV, tho, for all I know, 
it may have had tactical motives.

I don't think it's alright to identify Hare with IRV or any other single 
member variant. Hare is definively an at-large system. To identify his 
name with the opposite is a flat contradiction to what he stood for, not 
to mention the other differences.

Regards,

Richard Lung.



On 18/04/2024 18:45, robert bristow-johnson 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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