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

Wed Mar 20 12:04:22 PDT 2024

I agree, it’s not a perfect system. The fact that you’re only able to point
to two failures from over 500 elections is a sign that it’s a significant
upgrade from what we’ve got now, though.

I’m not saying it l’s perfect. I never have. All I’m saying is that
Ossipoff’s argument that voters who have to pick between IRV and FPP should
pick the latter is absurd.

Michael J. Garman | he/him

Digital & Campus Organizer | Rank the Vote

Book a meeting with me! <https://calendly.com/michael-j-garman>

(401) 644-4108 | michael.garman at rankthevote.us

On Wed, Mar 20, 2024 at 8:02 PM robert bristow-johnson <
rbj at audioimagination.com> wrote:

> 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.
>
> ___________________________________________________________________
>
> 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.
> ___________________________________________________________________
>
> 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.
> ___________________________________________________________________
>
> 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
> ___________________________________________________________________
>
> --
>
> r b-j . _ . _ . _ . _ rbj at audioimagination.com
>
> "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
>
> .
> .
> .
>
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