[EM] This is a repost for the benefit of Mr. Garman of RankTheVote

Wed Mar 20 12:02:16 PDT 2024

This is a boilerplate I send to people who ask me about this RCV thing and technically what went wrong in Burlington 2009.  I have inserted in [brackets] the kinda parallel story of the Alaska special election in August 2022 although my paper was not about that.

This is all the information Mr. Garman needs to understand what the bitch is.  If he reads it and still brings up the same-old disingenuities, he's gonna get plonked by me.  I have more tolerance for RCV happy talkers than I do for Trumpers, but it's not unlimited.

Mr. Garman, links at the bottom.

Read my paper.  Maybe read my letter to the Guv.

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RCV advocates are not entirely honest about failures of the Instant-Runoff (IRV) method nor that the method can be meaningfully corrected.

I had recently published a paper regarding RCV in the Springer journal, Constitutional Political Economy that had been invited by the editor of a special issue on voting methods.

https://link.springer.com/journal/10602/volumes-and-issues/34-3

I have also testified before both Vermont House and Senate Government Operations and have inspired the House bill H.424 to bring RCV to Vermont municipalities.  I have also connected Nobel Laureate and Harvard professor Dr. Eric Maskin to both HGO and SGO, but the latter committee snubbed this world-renown voting and social-choice expert.  But Dr. Maskin *did* testify before HGO about the recent (August 2022) RCV failure in Alaska (opponents have now successfully mounted a ballot question to repeal RCV).

To be clear, I am *for* RCV, I know exactly what we want it to do for us.  But I also recognize the need for reform and have witnessed first hand the failure of RCV in Burlington Vermont in 2009, which is what I have written, published, testified, and presented about.

The purpose of RCV is, in single-winner elections having 3 or more candidates:

1. ... that the candidate with majority support is elected.  Plurality isn't good enough.  We don't want a 40% candidate elected when the other 60% of voters would have preferred a different *specific* candidate over the 40% plurality candidate.  But we cannot find out *who* that different specific candidate is without using the ranked ballot. We RCV advocates all agree on that.

2. Then whenever a plurality candidate is elected *and* voters believe that a different *specific* candidate would have beaten the plurality candidate in a head-to-head race, then the 3rd candidate (neither the plurality candidate nor the one people think would have won head-to-head) is viewed as the spoiler, a loser whose presence in the race materially changes who the winner is.  We want to prevent that from happening.  All RCV advocates agree on that.

3. Then voters voting for the spoiler suffer voter regret and in future elections are more likely to vote tactically (compromise) and vote for the major party candidate that they dislike the least, but they think is best situated to beat the other major party candidate that they dislike the most and fear will get elected.  RCV is meant to free up those voters so that they can vote for the candidate they really like without fear of helping the candidate they loathe.  All RCV advocates agree with that.

4. The way RCV is supposed to help those voters is that if their favorite candidate is defeated, then their second-choice vote is counted.  So voters feel free to vote their hopes rather than voting their fears. Then 3rd-party and independent candidates get a more level playing field with the major-party candidates and diversity of choice in candidates is promoted.  It's to help unlock us from a 2-party system where 3rd-party and independent candidates are disadvantaged.
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In Burlington Vermont 2009 [and also more recently in the Alaska 2022 (August special election)], RCV (in the form of IRV) failed in every one of those core purposes for adopting RCV.  And it's an unnecessary failure because the ballot data contained sufficient information to satisfy all four purposes, but the tabulation method screwed it up.

In 2000, 48.4% of American voters marked their ballots that Al Gore was preferred over George W. Bush while 47.9% marked their ballots to the contrary.  Yet George W. Bush was elected to office.

In 2016, 48.2% of American voters marked their ballots that Hillary Clinton was preferred over Donald Trump while 46.1% marked their ballots to the contrary.  Yet Donald Trump was elected to office.

In 2009, 45.2% of Burlington voters marked their ballots that Andy Montroll was preferred over Bob Kiss while 38.7% marked their ballots to the contrary.  Yet Bob Kiss was elected to office.

[And more recently in August 2022, 46.3% of Alaskan voters marked their ballots that Nick Begich was preferred over Mary Peltola while 42.0% marked their ballots to the contrary.  Yet Mary Peltola was elected to office.]

That's not electing the majority-supported candidate.  Andy would have defeated Bob in the final round by a margin of 6.5% had Andy met Bob in the final round.  The 3476 voters that preferred Bob had votes with more effect than the 4064 voters that preferred Andy.  Each of the 3476 voters for Bob had a vote that counted more than the vote from each of the 4064 voters for Andy.

[Or in Alaska, each of the 79000 voters that preferred Democrat Mary Peltola over moderate Republican Nick Begich had a vote that effectively counted more than a vote from each of the 87000 voters preferring Begich over Peltola.  Those are not equally-valued votes, not "One person, one vote".]

Then, because Kurt Wright displaced Andy from the final round, that makes Kurt the spoiler, a loser in the race whose presence in the race materially changes who the winner is.  When this failure happens, it's always the loser in the IRV final round who becomes the spoiler.

[Similarly in Alaska, Sarah Palin displaced Nick Begich from the final round, which makes Palin the spoiler, a loser in the race whose presence in the race materially changes who the winner is.]

Then voters for Kurt that didn't like Bob and covered their butt with a contingency (second-choice) vote for Andy, found out that simply by marking Kurt as #1, they actually *caused* the election of Bob Kiss.  If just one in four of those voters had anticipated that their guy would not win and tactically marked Andy as their first choice, they would have stopped Bob Kiss from winning.

[Similarly in Alaska, voters for Palin that didn't like Peltola and covered their butt with a contingency (second-choice) vote for Begich, found out that simply by marking Palin as #1, they actually *caused* the election of Mary Peltola.  If just one in thirteen of those voters had anticipated that their candidate would not win and tactically (and insincerely) marked Begich as their first choice, they would have stopped Mary Peltola from winning.]

Like Nader voters that caused the election of George W in 2000.  They were punished for voting sincerely.  Do Republicans dare to run a candidate for mayor in Burlington?  Last time they did, they were punished for doing so.  And for voting for that favorite candidate.

But none of this bad stuff would have happened in 2009 if the method had elected Andy Montroll, who was preferred over Kurt Wright by a margin of 933 voters, who was preferred over Bob Kiss by a margin of 588 voters, and was preferred over Dan Smith by a margin of 1573 voters.  If you take out any loser, the winner remains the same.  No spoiler.  Then, consequentially, there are no voters who are punished for voting sincerely, no incentive for tactical voting.

And it's this disincentivizing tactical voting ("Vote your hopes, not your fears") that supports the notion that 3rd party and independent candidates can have a level playing field with major party candidates.  And that's what supports diversity on the candidate slate.

And, using the correct methodology, the Kurt Wright voters get to have their votes for their second-choice candidate be counted.  That promise, that our second-choice vote counts if our favorite candidate is defeated, was not kept in 2009 for these Wright voters.  But this reform would keep that promise where IRV failed to keep it.
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My submitted paper (that is not copyright limited and not behind a pay wall) is:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jIhFQfEoxSdyRz5SqEjZotbVDx4xshwM/view

More links to other important documentation:

One page primer (talking points) on Precinct Summability
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YtejO54DSOFRkHBGryS9pbKcBM7u1jTS/view

2022 Letter to Governor Scott (H.744 from 2021)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Niss1nWjbsb63rPeKTKLT7S2KVDZIo7G/view

Templates for plausible legislative language implementing Ranked-Choice Voting
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DGvs2F_YoKcbl2SXzCcfm3nEMkO0zCbR/view

Partha Dasgupta and Eric Maskin 2004 Scientific American article: The Fairest Vote of All
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1m6qn6Y7PAQldKNeIH2Tal6AizF7XY2U4/view

Articles regarding the Alaska RCV election in August 2022 that suffered a similar majority failure:

https://legislature.vermont.gov/Documents/2024/WorkGroups/House%20Government%20Operations/Bills/S.32/Witness%20Documents/S.32~Eric%20Maskin~Washington%20Post%20Article,%20Opinion-%20Alaska's%20ranked-choice%20voting%20is%20flawed,%20but%20there's%20an%20easy%20fix.%20~4-18-2023.pdf

https://legislature.vermont.gov/Documents/2024/WorkGroups/House%20Government%20Operations/Bills/S.32/Witness%20Documents/S.32~Eric%20Maskin~An%20Improvement%20to%20Ranked-Choice%20Voting,%20Slide%20Presentation~4-18-2023.pdf

https://arxiv.org/abs/2209.04764v1

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y32bPVmq6vb6SwnMn6vwQxzoJfvrv6ID/view

https://litarvan.substack.com/p/when-mess-explodes-the-irv-election

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/3711206-the-flaw-in-ranked-choice-voting-rewarding-extremists/

https://www.wsj.com/articles/alaska-ranked-choice-voting-rcv-palin-begich-election-11662584671
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r b-j . _ . _ . _ . _ rbj at audioimagination.com

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."

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