[EM] Better Choices for Democracy

[Michael Garman]

When you have a plan for a viable political movement for a Condorcet method
superior to IRV, I will cheer it on and help you build it.

On Sat, Jun 21, 2025 at 6:43 PM robert bristow-johnson via Election-Methods
<election-methods at lists.electorama.com> wrote:

>
>
> > On 06/21/2025 3:49 PM EDT Michael Garman <michael.garman at rankthevote.us>
> wrote:
> >
> >
> > > If we're gonna "correct" First-Past-The-Post, let's make sure that the
> correction itself is as correct as it can possibly be
> >
> > I, for one, don’t believe in making the perfect the enemy of the good.
> >
>
> The "as correct as it can possibly be" is not perfect.  I acknowledge the
> existence of Arrow's theorem and of the Condorcet paradox.  Nothing is
> perfect.
>
> But bad outcomes (such as thwarted majority causing unequal votes and
> spoiled election that harms voters for voting sincerely which then
> incentivizes tactical voting) due to unnecessary flaws are less correct
> than unavoidable bad outcomes.  I, for one, believe in correcting
> unnecessary flaws.
>
> These unnecessary flaws are a consequence of an RCV method based on the
> wrong principles, more precisely the lack of principles.  IRV is procedure
> someone thought up (and Condorcet did 40-some years before Hare and
> rejected the idea because he knew what could happen) with intent to solve a
> problem, essentially the spoiler effect (or IIA) when there are three or
> more candidates.  Hare proposes a method without really telling us what
> principle the method is based on.  Or, perhaps, Hare thinks that IRV gives
> voters a second-choice vote if their favorite candidate cannot be elected.
> But that's not true.  It never applies to the voters behind the loser in
> the final round.  Most of the time that doesn't change the outcome of the
> election, but when it does, it's always bad; spoiled election and all the
> bad things that come outa that.
>
> So IRV is a procedure without a principle.  It just says "Count the
> highest-ranked votes for candidates that have not yet been defeated, then
> defeat the candidate with the least votes.  Rinse and repeat."  That's
> simple, but not a principle.
>
> Condorcet says "When more voters rank A over B than than to the contrary,
> B is not elected."  That's also simple.  The procedure is derived from that
> principle.  The thing that IRV apologists have to justify is why *should* B
> be elected?  Why is it a good thing that B is elected?  What principle or
> what public good is it?
>
> --
>
> r b-j . _ . _ . _ . _ rbj at audioimagination.com
>
> "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
>
> .
> .
> .
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