<DIV>I mostly agree with Russ.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Another reason why IRV is popular is that it's basically an expanded and automated version of an election method already used for many local elections in the US, as well as elections to some higher offices in at least 2 states (Nebraska and Louisiana): 2-step runoff. People are familiar with 2 step runoff, and it makes intuitive sense. Yes, I know, the majority generated by runoffs isn't as legitimate as being the Condorcet Winner, but at first glance it sounds good.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>If cycles were impossible then I think Condorcet would have a real shot at public acceptance. But since cycles are always a possibility, we have to include them in the discussion.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>On the other hand, I don't follow sports at all but a friend was telling me that in some tournaments the teams will start off in groups of 3, and will play 3 games among themselves. The undefeated team in each group will advance, and if there's no undefeated team in the group then they'll do something with the margins of victory to figure out who advances. That sounds awfully similar to some Condorcet methods.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Does anybody know anything about these methods and whether sports fans find them too confusing?</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Alex<BR><BR><B><I>Russ Paielli</I></B> wrote:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=replbq style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 12:35:22 -0800<BR>From: Russ Paielli <6049awj02@sneakemail.com><BR>Subject: [EM] Why IRV is popular<BR>To: election-methods@electorama.com<BR>Message-ID: <4233528A.7080509@sneakemail.com><BR>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed<BR><BR>Eric Gorr recently posted a link to a one-page document by Jim Lindsay <BR>explaining why he and many political activists prefer IRV to Condorcet, <BR>Approval, and other methods.<BR><BR>One of Jim's "criteria" was "system easily explained." Surprisingly, he <BR>put "somewhat" for both IRV and Condorcet.<BR><BR>IRV is much easier to explain than Condorcet, and I believe that is the <BR>primary reason that it is more popular.<BR><BR>An IRV promoter simply explains that the voter ranks the candidates, and <BR>the first choices are counted. So far the counting procedure it is <BR>identical to
our
current plurality system. Then the promoter explains <BR>that if nobody gets a majority, the candidate with the least votes is <BR>eliminated, and any voter who had that candidate at the top of his list <BR>has his next choice bumped up to the top. The counting is then repeated, <BR>again as if it were a plurality election. The process repeats until some <BR>candidate gets a majority.<BR><BR>My point is that the counting procedure is very similar to our current <BR>system. The only twist is the elimination of candidates and transfer of <BR>votes, which most people can grasp fairly quickly.<BR><BR>The fact that IRV is non-monotonic and non-summable never even occurs to <BR>perhaps 99% of those who hear about it, and the activists who know about <BR>these deficiencies don't consider them important. IRV is popular because <BR>its rules are simple and the basic counting procedure at each round is <BR>identical to plurality.<BR><BR>The same cannot be said for Condorcet, particula
rly when
it involves <BR>dropping of defeats. Just explaining the pairwise races and matrix is <BR>already more complicated than IRV. Then when you start talking about <BR>dropping defeats, people start wondering what sort of crackpot scheme it <BR>is. By the time you get into the actual *rules* for dropping defeats, <BR>the game is over. Get into "margins" vs. "winning votes" and the poor <BR>listener wishes he were late for a root canal.<BR><BR>"Traditional" Condorcet with dropping of defeats may be appropriate for <BR>organizations of people with a special common interest, but it will <BR>never be accceptable for highly contentious public elections. The Bird <BR>Watchers of America may be willing to agree to use defeat-dropping <BR>Condorcet, but a large public jurisdiction never will. And think about <BR>what would happen if they did: the losing side would immediately become <BR>biased against the method. It's just too complicated and too arbitrary.<BR><BR>The general public expe
cts the
rules of a public voting system to be <BR>simple and easily understood. The public acceptability of a method goes <BR>down by perhaps nearly an order of magnitude for each additional <BR>sentence required to explain it. That's what I think, anyway.<BR><BR>--Russ<BR></BLOCKQUOTE><p>
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