[EM] Better Choices for Democracy

[robert bristow-johnson]

This grew out of a meeting that Nic Tideman organized in 2023 (September or October, I can't remember) at Virginia Tech.  I attended the meeting.  We (or they, I hadn't been asked to play any role here) are trying to set up an organizational structure similar to FairVote (and its large number of satellite orgs), Center for Election Science (the Approval vote folks), and the Equal Vote Coalition (the STAR folks).  I really wish we got the domain for Equal Vote, because that term belongs with Condorcet and no other method (unless that other method is Condorcet-consistent).  "Better Choices" is the name, that was available, that we sorta glombed onto.

My input is less scholarly and more about advocacy and activism.  Living in Burlington Vermont, I was around in one of the two U.S. RCV elections in which a Condorcet winner existed but was not elected.  Bad shit happens following but 13 years later we got IRV back again, under a new-improved label: RCV.

We Condorcet advocates must not allow FairVote and the like to appropriate the term "Ranked-Choice Voting" to mean *only* Hare RCV or Instant-Runoff.  Borda is RCV.  Bucklin is RCV.  Condorcet is RCV.  If it's a ranked ballot and the most-preferred candidate is marked with a #1 (not a #5 like in Score or STAR), it's Ranked-Choice Voting.  It's not just Hare RCV.  We must not let them take RCV from the lexicon and say it only means IRV.

And we must confront other lies (literally lies) coming outa FairVote and satellite orgs.  Like right on the front page here: https://voterchoicema.org/ there are two significant lies.  They're lies and should be identified as such.

I think that Better Choices can be done better to focus on legislation and to point out, to policy makers and the general public, why Condorcet is better than Hare but affirm why a ranked ballot is better than FPTP or even the other (cardinal) alternatives; Score, STAR, or Approval.  But we gotta point out the FairVote lies because Hare RCV advocates (and writers) lie with impunity.  The anti-reform crowd pick up on it and use it to discredit any ranked ballot reform.

--

r b-j . _ . _ . _ . _ rbj at audioimagination.com

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."

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> On 06/19/2025 5:17 PM EDT Michael Garman via Election-Methods <election-methods at lists.electorama.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> It would be neat if they set out an actual theory of change instead of just “tell your friends about our cool idea.”
> 
> 
> On Thu, Jun 19, 2025 at 5:13 PM Ralph Suter via Election-Methods <election-methods at lists.electorama.com> wrote:
> > 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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> > > 
> > > Today's Topics:
> > > 
> > >    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
> > > 
> > >