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<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite><font size=2>At the risk of
repeating myself, my argument against Condorcet can be summarised as
follows:<br><br>
I do not support Condorcet because I believe that in practice, regardless
of the theoretical and conceptual advantages it may possess, it would be
too favourable towards parties who succeed in positioning themselves in
the centre and correspondingly discriminatory against wing
parties.</font></blockquote><br>
Too favorable is, of course, a matter of opinion. There's something
undeniably meaningful about saying a candidate would beat any other
candidate if they were the only two running.<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite><font size=2>IRV succeeds, I
believe, in striking a balance between the two somewhat conflicting aims
of ensuring that a candidate has majority support ( a candidate does not
win with a minority of the vote because the opposition is split)
</font></blockquote><br>
IRV does nothing of the sort. It simply fails to hand the election
to a candidate with the largest core of support in different cases than
Condorcet. Consider this scenario:<br><br>
10% FarRight>Right>Centrist>Left>FarLeft <br>
10% Right>FarRight>Centrist>Left>FarLeft <br>
15% Right>Centrist>FarRight>Left>FarLeft <br>
16% Centrist>Right>Left>FarRight>FarLeft <br>
15% Centrist>Left>Right>FarLeft>FarRight <br>
13% Left>Centrist>FarLeft>Right>FarRight <br>
11% Left>FarLeft>Centrist>Right>FarRight <br>
10% FarLeft>Left>Centrist>Right>FarRight<br><br>
Centrist wins the election in every deterministic voting scheme known to
man, except IRV.<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite><font size=2>I would probably
counter it with my favourite 49 A>B>C, 3 B>A>C, 48
C>B>A example with some comment about the importance of first
preference votes/utility, somebody else would them make a comment about
how first preference votes have no significance of themselves and so it
goes on .........</font></blockquote><br>
In this scenario, 97% of the voters prefer someone other than B. In
order to win the election, B has to convince 96% of the 97% (i.e. about
99% of the voters who don't fully support him) to back him with their
second place votes. If the candidate can actually manage that, then
he's not some weasely "weak centrist"; he's a real compromise
and has convinced the electorate of this. The only way you'd ever
see an election like this would be if A,B,and C were all well known, and
were all extremely close in viewpoint, yet still managing to be clearly
distinct with A and C slightly more extreme.<br><br>
Of course, B doesn't have to convince quite as many people to put him on
their ballot if he has more fist place support. But then he stops
looking so weak, doesn't he?<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite><font size=2>To get a reasonable
result from Approval voting the voter needs to have at least a working
knowledge of how to vote strategically in an Approval election. This is
my major objection to Approval. I feel that that many, if not a majority
of voters when presented with the Approval question will take the
question at face value and vote for all the candidates they approve of.
Very few people unfamiliar with AV strategy will look at the instruction
and think " ah, what I need to do is approve every candidate whose
utility ( to me ) exceeds that of the candidate most likely to win"
or any similar thing. If people do use strategy it is more likely to be
on the level of " well I approve of A,B and C, oh but if I approve
all of them I'll have approved 3 of the 4 candidates on the ballot, maybe
that's too many. Well, I like A and B a lot more than C so I'll only
approve A and B".</font></blockquote><br>
A few responses:<br><br>
1) People aren't idiots so they will probably only approve one of
the front-runners in a race. Understanding this isn't any harder
than understanding the LO2E problem, which most people are capable
of.<br><br>
2) Parties will tell their supporters how to vote.<br><br>
3) There are lots of potential strategies, but only the most
hairbrained will actually produce bad results with any consistency.
People can mix the "above average utility" and the
"favorite frontrunner plus" and the "above frontrunner,
plus frontrunner maybe" and the "above average
expectation" and the "just like I would vote in plurality"
strategies to their heart's content, and the final results will probably
turn out fine.<br><br>
<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite><font size=2>Getting back to one of
James Green-Armytage's points I feel that IRV supporters attacking
Approval supporters attacking Condorcet supporters in public ( as opposed
to an internet discussion group like this) is the surest way on this
Earth to maintain plurality.</font></blockquote><br>
If there was an IRV movement in my area, I'd do my darndest to argue
against them semi-privately (i.e. not at a city council meeting,
hopefully) and turn them to Condorcet. Most IRV supporters simply
aren't aware of IRV's flaws, after all. But if IRV were on the
ballot, I'd vote for it.</html>