[EM] Regarding RCV, in poll & in November

[Michael Ossipoff]

When I reported preliminary poll-results I didn’t report about RCV or STV,
because there were small-electorate ties that prevent a typical count, &
require tiebreaking rules (which would have to have been stated before the
voting).

But I applied two plausible nonrandom tiebreakers, &, by both of them, RCV
elected Biden.

Note that, while RCV elected Biden, Approval returned an unresolvable tie
between Biden & the CW, Marianne Williamson.

Approval thereby came closer to electing the CW, & more likely would have,
with a larger, but similarly-constituted, electorate.

Approval doesn’t share rank-methods’ drastic compromise-strategy of voting
someone the voter like less, over someone s/he likes more.

Therefore there’s certainly a strong case for not bothering with the
implementation-expense of rank-balloting, & instead just using Approval.
…which doesn’t have rank-methods’ worst-case strategy.

Yes, defensive order-reversal needn’t happen in rank-methods.

In the best Condorcet methods, no one needs defensive order-reversal (or,
really, due to autodeterence, *any* defensive strategy).

But those methods are disqualified from public political elections, by
their enormous computational need, with consequent correspondingly-high
count-fraud vulnerability.

Yes there are some Condorcet-Criterion complying methods that don’t need
the exhaustive pairwise count, but they haven’t been shown to have wv
Condorcet’s excellent strategy-properties.

But RP(wv), MinMax(wv) or Smith//MinMax(wv) would be good for single-winner
choices in Parliament.

For that purpose, might as well use the very best: RP(wv).

..& I like them for some polls, like the current one here, & Christina
Tobin’s Free-&-Equal polls.

Not all polls. Some polls are better with RCV. Some are better with
Approval.

What about RCV, in public political elections?

For members of the Mutual-Majority, there’s absolutely no need for any
strategy. Just rank sincerely, & RCV is guaranteed to elect a candidate of
the Mutual-Majority.

…the one with the best broad-support among the Mutual-Majority.

Then why do the Republicans dislike RCV? Well, they’ve been finding that
they’re not in the Mutual-Majority.

Which way did the transfers, & the win, go in Burlington & Alaska? The
Republicans can’t have not noticed that.

There’s been a lot of criticism of RCV, because the situation isn’t as good
for those *not* in the Mutual-Majority.

But:

1. Those outside the Mutual-Majority are still no worse off than they were,
with Plurality. …& aren’t the nonprogressives the ones who think that
Plurality is good enough?

2. Who says that a good method has to elect someone majority-unpreferred?

Yes, when the Condorcet-complying methods elect the CW, they’re electing
the Mutual-Majority candidate most liked by those outside the
Mutual--Majority. That’s mighty considerate!  It’s unnecessarily
considerate.

Who ever said that people not in the mutual-majority should gays say in
which Mutual-Majority candidate is elected?

That’s the business of Mutual-Majority. *They* should choose which if their
candidates to elect.

I don’t give a shit what the losers want.

RCV always elects the candidate of the Mutual-Majority who has the best
broad-support among the Mutual-Majority.

…& guess what: Most of the people wan what’s best for most of the people.

i.e. The Progressives are the Mutual-Majority.

They can’t lose in RCV.

Then what about in my poll?

A public election, in a jurisdiction where the Progressives have enacted
RCV is different.

They certainly didn’t enact RCV so that they could bury someone they like
more, under someone they like less. …& so they won’t.

Have I been critical of RCV? No!

I’ve merely been critical of what I now (more politely) call the
FairVote-Fib (FF).

The FF has given a good method a bad-name, a bad reputation.  …& has turned
a lot of people against a good method.

The FF is Indy’s fib to Republicans (…&, I claim, to all Republocratic
candidates …& their minority of preferrers.

But, to Progressives, it isn’t a fib at all.

A sincere-ranking Mutual-Majority can’t lose in RCV.

Yes I like Approval, & it has advantages.

Approvals remains my main proposal to jurisdictions where there’s no
already-existent RCV proposal or even big public interest in one. …places
where there’s nothing happening yet with singl-winner reform.

But, where there’s an RCV ballot-measure, & RCV is what’s on the ballot…or
anywhere where RCV is already what people want & are talking about , then I
support the RCV proposal.

In the 35 years of the current RCV project, how many states use it
statewide: 2

Hopefully that will soon be 4.

But even then, &  if RCV keeps gaining 2 seats every 2 years, it will take
46 years to succeed nationwide.

Too slow.

Approval with is minimalness, it’s minimal change from the status-quo, &
it’s zero implementation-expense, Approval could take off a LOT faster.

Plurality lets you give a point to one candidate…& requires you to give
zero points to each of the others.

It lets you rate one candidate “Yes”,  & requires you to rate all the
others “No”.

What, it isn’t intended as points or ratings?

Irrelevant—That’s the count result.

Plurality forces you to ( usually insincerely, unwillingly & complainingly)
make some compromise that you despise beat your favorite.

How Democratic is that coercion?

With 3 or more candidates, democracy requires letting you express, &
have-counted, relative preference or merit among & across those candidates.

If it forbids that expression, it isn’t democracy.

Approval consists of no change other than dropping the current
antidemocratic forbidding of expression of merit & preference among &
across the candidates…dropping the artificial antidemocratic requirement to
rate all but one at zero, thereby forcing falsification of preferences.
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