<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<p>Ignorance about voting systems is widespread. "IRV" was invented
in the 19th century, and is the single-winner version of Single
Transferable Vote, which is a not-so-bad method for creating, in
multiwinner elections, something like proportional representation,
though a far superior variant was invented in the 1880s that
would, if impemented, create full representation. "No taxation
without representation," but systems that depend on contested
elections leave many and often most voters without any chosen
representation, and, at best, a weak compromise. But because we
have never seen anything better, we think that we have a
democracy, and we do, compared with truly awful systems. But the
systems we have can fail badly, and we never seem to fix them.</p>
<p>Now, back in the 19th century, single-winner STV was known to be
a very poor system. Within the context of a strong two-party
system, it looks good. However, whenever there are three factions,
and the third faction starts to approach parity, it can fail
badly. IRV proponents look at what can seem like successes, but
...</p>
<p>IRV was so-named to make it resemble the most widely-used
"advanced voting system" in actual use, top two runoff. In fact,
top two runoff showed a very interesting characteristic, in
research conducted by FairVote. In about a third of the runoffs,
the frontrunner in the primary lost in the runoff. That is rare in
actual IRV elections. Why? Well, IRV proponents also claim that
Robert's Rules of Order (RRONR) recommends IRV. In fact, it
recommends a version that requires a true majority of the votes
for someone to win. If there is no true majority (i.e., a majority
of all ballots containing a vote for the leader), then the
election must be repeated. With a top-two runoff? No. That, in
fact, would cement in the pathology. With a completely new
election, new nominations, etc. RRONR actually doesn't like the
IRV method, but suggests it only because it is in actual usage in
some organizations, and if it is impossible to hold a runoff, IRV
can be considered. In fact, they know that there are better
methods for that contingency, but they are not in wide use, and
RRONR is descriptive, not prescriptive.; (and if one is following
the described standard rules, no decision is ever made by mere
plurality, which IRV commonly does.</p>
<p>And the voters of San Francisco were lied to in the voter
information pamphlet that claimed a "majority of the votes" would
still be required to win. The IRV initiative actually removed that
requirement from the law. But they then redefine "votes." If you
didn't vote for a frontrunner, one of the top two, our ballot is
disqualified. The system pretends you didn't vote. I've pointed
out that by these rules, all elections would complete with
unanimous agreement of "all the votes," just do the elimination
one more time.</p>
<p>I haven't looked at recent elections, but Burlington Vermont was
a city with three major parties. It elected a candidate from the
Progressive Party when it was clear from the votes that a majority
of voters preferred the Democrat over him. Republican voters
actually would have seen a better result if they had stayed home
and not voted. (Because they preferred the Republican, the
Democrat was disqualified before their second-rank votes for hiim
were counted, leading the the Progressive winning. If one is a
Progressive, one might think that a good result, but the voters of
Burlington proceeded to toss out the method. By the way, top-two
runoff would have the same problem.</p>
<p>People are interested in other voting systems, because some of
them are known to work better than IRV. Top two runoff, where
write-in votes are allowed in the runoff, is better than IRV. Of
course, if one thinks that runoff elections are Bad, then one
might like IRV more. However, there are other options that reduce
the need for runoffs while preserving basic democratic values, as
IRV does not.</p>
<p>I'm fascinated how reformers, supposedly interested in improving
democratic process, will lie to promote their ideas. (But most
pushing IRV are not lying, they are ignorant, but some who make
their living lobbying for IRV do lie.)</p>
<p>It is fascinating to me that those with obviously little
understanding of the issues are ready to dismiss discussions of
them by those with far higher knowledge and experience as "crazy."
It seems to be symptomatic of our time, ignorance displayed with
high confidence.</p>
<p>A naive appraisal would look at, say, Bush v. Gore in 2000 and
think that IRV would have fixed it. And it might have. However,
the problem is that with IRV, third parties would gain an initial
toehold and would gain much more of the vote. That might be
considered good.; But, then, the spoiler effect would return with
a vengeance, with results like those in Burlington, demolishing
the benefit. I'm not going into them, but there are demonstrated
systems with far better and safer performance, such as Bucklin
Voting, which could be called "Instant Runoff Approval." It counts
all the votes, and is precinct summable, unlike IRV, which is
expensive and difficult to canvass, and which ends up ignoring
many or even most of the votes cast. They aren't even counted.
Bucklin was very popular for a time about a hundred years ago, and
was eliminated, not because it didn't work, but because it did,
and that's obvious from the history. (In some elections under some
conditions, there was still majority failure, but that was not
actually a poor result from the system, but a characteristic of
some primary elections. A version of Bucklin that was actually
two-round if needed would have addressed this.</p>
<p>And then there are score systems, which allow maximum voting
flexibility. It is now possible to design voting systems that are
vast improvements over those in use. The system I mention above as
designed in the 1880s would transform representative democracy,
making party affiliation unnecessary, probably removing the
corrosive influence of money in elections (because it does not
waste any votes and you can vote for your favorite, period, no
assessment of "viability" being necessary) ... but who actually
cares about real democracy?</p>
<p>Very few.</p>
<p>Advanced voting systems can and should be implemented in NGOs,
because until people have experience with them, they won't have a
snowball's chance in hell of being implemented in public
elections.<br>
</p>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 7/12/2018 9:37 PM, Sennet Williams
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:712639098.3705300.1531445847564@mail.yahoo.com">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<div style="font-family:Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial,
sans-serif;font-size:13px;">
<div>Sorry I don't get online much, but everyone should know
that RCV is getting a LOT of good publicity.</div>
<div>1-Maine just had the first statewide IRV election in U.S.
history.</div>
<div>2-since then, there have been op-ed(s?) in the NYT calling
for RCV nationwide</div>
<div>3-London Breed has just become the first african american
female mayor of SF: thanks to RCV.</div>
<div>4-Jesse Arreguin is the first latino mayor of Berkeley,
thanks to RCV.</div>
<div>5-Jean Quan was the first asian mayor of Oakland, thanks to
RCV.</div>
<div>6-Libby Schaaf, Oakland's new mayor, was elected thanks to
RCV.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>If you want to pay attention, IRV/RCV/ranked pairs are
inevitably the future, that is why I don't understand this
craziness discussing outdated election "systems."</div>
<div>-Thanks for reading</div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<fieldset class="mimeAttachmentHeader"></fieldset>
<br>
<pre wrap="">----
Election-Methods mailing list - see <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://electorama.com/em">http://electorama.com/em</a> for list info
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
</body>
</html>