[EM] Better Choices for Democracy

[Chris Benham]

I am both a supporter of the Condorcet criterion and a Hare (aka IRV) 
"apologist".   Hare (properly implemented, allowing unlimited strict 
ranking from the top) is a good method and so are some Condorcet methods.

> 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.

I think that *every voter gets a single vote that is transferable 
according to the only rule that doesn't allow lower rankings to either 
harm or help higher-ranked candidates* is close enough to 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?

You are counter-posing an indecisive criterion (Condorcet) to a decisive 
method (IRV/Hare).   To address your question, sometimes we should elect 
B because all Condorcet methods have some Burial incentive so we can't 
be confident A's pairwise victory over B is based on sincere votes.

Voters like later-no-harm for themselves and later-no-help for 
rival-faction voters. Failure of later-no-harm is not nice and failure 
of later-no-help is dodgy.  The Condorcet criterion is incompatible with 
both LNH criteria.

I gather that in the US  there is some logistic impediment to allowing 
unlimited (strict) ranking, but not to allowing unlimited equal-ranking 
within a limited number of ranking positions. In that case I think the 
best method is Margins Sorted Approval(implicit).

*Voters rank only those candidates they approve. Initially order the 
candidates according to their approval scores. Check the pairwise result 
of the adjacent pair of candidates with smallest difference in their 
approval scores.(If there is a tie for this then the lowest-ordered pair 
among the tied pairs.) If the lower-ordered of the two  pairwise beats 
the higher-ordered candidate, then those two candidates change places in 
the order. Repeat this procedure to the end. The candidate at the top of 
the final order is the winner.*

As a voter I might be a bit annoyed that I can't rank among candidate I 
don't approve and so I prefer Margins Sorted Approval (explicit) that 
allows  voters to insert an explicit approval cutt-off in their rankings 
(and is otherwise the same).

Chris Benham




On 22/06/2025 8:13 am, robert bristow-johnson via Election-Methods 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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