[EM] Better Choices for Democracy

[Ralph Suter]

You've oversimplified what they advocate. Their website says:


"In almost all large-scale elections, the process of comparing pairs of 
candidates will identify the Consensus Choice, a single candidate who 
wins all their head-to-head matchups. In the unlikely event that no 
Consensus Choice exists, the ultimate winner can be determined by one of 
the following resolution methods:

     "Margin of Loss Resolution: If there is no Consensus Choice, the 
candidate whose largest head-to-head loss is smallest is declared the 
winner.

     "Number of Wins & Margin of Loss Resolution: The candidate with the 
most head-to-head wins is declared the winner. In the event that 
multiple candidates tie for most head-to-head wins, the tie is broken in 
favor of the one whose largest head-to-head loss is smallest.

     "Instant Runoff Resolution: If there is no Consensus Choice, 
Instant Runoff Voting is used to determine the winner."

My biggest question is why they included instant runoff as one of the 
resolution methods, especially because on their FAQ page, they explain 
why it isn't a good method:

"Instant Runoff Voting

"Under Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), voters rank candidates in order of 
preference. Initially, only first-choice votes are counted. If no 
candidate has a majority (>50%), the candidate with the fewest 
first-choice votes is eliminated, and votes for that candidate are 
transferred to the voters’ next-ranked candidates. This process repeats 
until one candidate receives a majority of the remaining votes.

"Under Consensus Choice, voters rank candidates similarly, but instead 
of using sequential elimination rounds, we use rankings to directly 
compare each candidate against every other candidate in head-to-head 
matchups. The candidate who wins against every other candidate 
individually is declared the winner.

"Consensus Choice selects the candidate with the broadest support across 
the entire electorate.

"As a result, Consensus Choice discourages divisive campaigning because 
winners must appeal broadly, not just to a faction or a particular base 
of supporters.

"Example:

     "IRV: Candidate A initially leads but doesn't have a majority. 
Candidate C is eliminated, and votes transfer primarily to Candidate B, 
making B the winner—even if Candidate D (already eliminated) could have 
beaten B head-to-head.

     "Consensus Choice: Candidate B might have the most pairwise wins 
against all others directly, immediately making B the winner without 
needing multiple rounds of eliminations.

"Why it matters:

"Because it eliminates candidates one at a time, Instant Runoff may 
eliminate a candidate early who would have broader appeal overall.

"Consensus Choice encourages candidates to build broader support among 
voters to reduce toxic polarization. Under Instant Runoff Voting, the 
winning candidate only needs to beat the last remaining competitor 
head-to-head, which doesn't necessarily mean that the IRV winner has 
majority support when compared to other candidates.

"In short, IRV focuses on sequential elimination rounds, while Consensus 
Choice evaluates comprehensive head-to-head comparisons to select the 
candidate most broadly supported by the electorate."

-Ralph Suter

On 6/19/2025 3:02 PM, election-methods-request at lists.electorama.com wrote:
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>     1. Better Choices for Democracy (Markus Schulze)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2025 18:17:35 +0200
> From: Markus Schulze<markus.schulze8 at gmail.com>
> To:election-methods at lists.electorama.com
> Subject: [EM] Better Choices for Democracy
> Message-ID:<465e498b-a7f2-40e8-9083-3cd518c7729d at gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
>
> Hallo,
>
> in May 2025, "Better Choices for Democracy", a new Condorcet
> advocacy group, has launched its website:
>
> https://www.betterchoices.vote
>
> This group consists of people like Nic Tideman, Eric Maskin,
> Charles T. Munger Jr. and James Green-Armytage.
>
> They promote a Condorcet method called "Consensus Choice
> Voting": If there is a Condorcet winner, that candidate
> is the winner of Consensus Choice Voting. Otherwise, the
> winner is determined by IRV. See:
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMVLU63Ws9A
>
> Interestingly, this Condorcet method doesn't even satisfy
> independence of clones.
>
> Let's say that candidate A is a Condorcet winner, but
> doesn't receive any first preferences. Consensus Choice
> Voting then selects candidate A.
>
> Now, let's say that candidate A is replaced by clones A1,A2,A3
> and that none of these clones is a Condorcet winner. Then, IRV
> kicks in and first eliminates A1, A2 and A3.
>
> Markus Schulze
>
>
>
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