[EM] A rant about IRV and it's recent history in Alaska.

[Michael Garman]

Because rb-j is an intellectually dishonest crank who doesn’t want to be
confused by facts after he’s made up his mind

On Thu, Dec 5, 2024 at 12:35 AM Greg Dennis <greg.dennis at voterchoicema.org>
wrote:

> Why leave out the November 2022 election where Peltola was the Condorcet
> winner against Begich?
>
> On Wed, Dec 4, 2024 at 4:46 PM robert bristow-johnson <
> rbj at audioimagination.com> wrote:
>
>> This is what we've learned from the 2-year history of Ranked-Choice
>> Voting in Alaska.
>>
>> The Instant-Runoff Voting method of RCV failed in Alaska August 2022 at
>> everything that RCV is supposed to do for us (as it also did in [Burlington
>> Vermont 2009](
>> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jIhFQfEoxSdyRz5SqEjZotbVDx4xshwM/view)).
>>
>> Essentially, it was a spoiled election with all the bad things that come
>> with a spoiled election.  In August 2022, Sarah Palin was a loser whose
>> presence in the race materially changed who the winner was.  Had Palin not
>> run, Begich would meet Peltola in the final round and defeat Peltola.  (We
>> know this from the [tallies](
>> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y32bPVmq6vb6SwnMn6vwQxzoJfvrv6ID/view)
>> from the Cast Vote Record.)
>>
>> The definition of a Spoiler is a loser whose presence in the race
>> materially changes who the winner is.
>>
>> So then these voters for the spoiler, Palin, they find out that their
>> second-choice vote was never counted.  Their favorite candidate was
>> defeated and their second-choice vote was never counted.  If just 1 out of
>> 13 of the Palin voters that marked Begich as their lesser evil (there were
>> 34089 of them); if about 2600 of these voters voted tactically (the tactic
>> is called "compromising") and marked their lesser-evil (Begich) as their
>> first-choice vote, then Begich would have met Peltola in the final round
>> and beaten Peltola.
>>
>> They were promised that it was safe to vote for their favorite, Sarah
>> Palin, but by doing so they caused the election of Mary Peltola.  But they
>> prevented Begich from having a head-to-head with Peltola because Palin did
>> instead and lost.
>>
>> There were about 112000 voting GOP and 75000 Dem.  The GOP vote was split
>> and RCV promised that it would resolve the split vote correctly, but it
>> didn't.  IRV propped up the *weaker* of the two GOP candidates against
>> Peltola and that candidate lost.  If, instead, RCV had put Begich up
>> against Peltola, Begich would have won.
>>
>> They were promised that RCV would let them vote their hopes, not their
>> fears.  But they would have been better off voting their fears.  They were
>> promised their second-choice vote would count if their favorite candidate
>> couldn't get elected but that second-choice vote was never counted for
>> these Palin voters.
>>
>> More Alaskans, 87899 to 79461 (an 8438 voter margin), preferred Begich to
>> Peltola and marked their ballots saying so.  But Mary Peltola was elected
>> instead.
>>
>> This November, again, more Alaskan voters marked their ballots that
>> Begich is preferred to Peltola by nearly the same margin, 8354 (164117 to
>> 155763).
>>
>> Both times about 8000 more Alaskans said they would prefer Begich over
>> Peltola to go to Washington and represent the state.  And, both times,
>> Alaskan voters marked their ballots saying so.  Both times, Instant-Runoff
>> Voting was used.
>>
>> What was different?
>>
>> Sarah Palin was in the race in 2022 and not in the race in 2024.  And
>> different winners resulted.
>
>
>>
>> --
>>
>> r b-j . _ . _ . _ . _ rbj at audioimagination.com
>>
>> "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
>>
>> .
>> .
>> .
>> ----
>> 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/>
>
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