[EM] Conservative critique of IRV as used in NYC mayoral election

[Chris Benham]

Ralph,

> What's interesting, however, is that their arguments would mostly not 
> apply to Condorcet methods.

I didn't get that impression.

> Voters believe they are choosing a leader. Instead, they're offering a 
> list of preferences to be reprocessed by a black-box system until 
> someone emerges victorious—even, potentially, a candidate who was no 
> one's legitimate first choice.

Very very difficult for a candidate that is no one's first choice 
("legitimate" or otherwise) to escape being eliminated in Hare, but it 
is perfectly possible for such a candidate to be the CW.

This paragraph confuses me:
> Imagine five candidates: A, B, C, D, and E. Suppose candidate D is 
> voter Johnny's first choice—he supports D by 90%, and his support for 
> B, his second choice, barely registers at 4%. Suppose that D ranks 
> last when all the votes are counted. According to the ranked-choice 
> rules, D is eliminated.

What does "he supports D by 90%" mean?

> In this system, voters rank up to five candidates in order of 
> preference. If no one wins a majority of first-choice votes, the 
> candidate with the fewest is eliminated. The votes from that 
> candidate's supporters are redistributed to their next choice.

I gather from a link in the article that this is being used in an 
election with 11 candidates. In that case I am disturbed by the absurd 
artificial limit of 5 on the number of candidates the voter can rank. 
Australian style compulsory full strict ranking I find far less bad, 
especially with Hare. The GIGO problem could potentially be much worse 
with a Condorcet method.

> This method may look elegant and straightforward in a textbook. But in 
> practice, it distorts voter intent and undermines the basic principle 
> of representative democracy.

Which is what? And how does it do that? The article is just open 
anti-intellectual blather.

-Chris Benham


On 25/06/2025 6:34 am, Ralph Suter via Election-Methods wrote:
>
> Just today, the conservative online US news publication "tippinsights" 
> published an editorial that includes some of the key arguments 
> conservative opponents of ranked-choice voting (by which they 
> invariably mean IRV and never mention Condorcet or any other ranked 
> choice voting methods) have been using to oppose it. Their arguments 
> are not unreasonable, though also not especially persuasive. What's 
> interesting, however, is that their arguments would mostly not apply 
> to Condorcet methods. If Condorcet methods are ever used in major 
> elections or even prominently advocated, conservative opponents of IRV 
> might oppose them as much as they now oppose IRV (though maybe not -- 
> I'm not at all certain), but they would have to argue against them in 
> very different ways. The article, entitled "Regressive Ranked-Choice 
> Racket Redefines Democracy," is posted at:
>
> https://tippinsights.com/regressive-ranked-choice-racket-redefines-democracy/
>
> I'd appreciate any comments or critiques anyone may want to post.
>
> -Ralph Suter
>
>
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