<div dir="auto">No, they were promised that if their first-choice candidate was out of the running, their vote would count for their second choice. Important distinction!</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">These two examples indicate IRV isn’t perfect, I agree, but the fact that there are only two out of over 500 US IRV elections shows that it’s a major improvement from FPTP. Ossipoff’s encouragement of people to vote against IRV because it isn’t perfect remains foolish. </div><div><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Wed, Mar 20, 2024 at 6:01 PM robert bristow-johnson <<a href="mailto:rbj@audioimagination.com">rbj@audioimagination.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204)"><br>
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> On 03/20/2024 5:46 AM EDT Michael Garman <<a href="mailto:michael.garman@rankthevote.us" target="_blank">michael.garman@rankthevote.us</a>> wrote:<br>
> <br>
> <br>
> > Obviously they must have only meant ‘your next or 2nd choice *among the un-eliminated candidates.”<br>
> <br>
> Well, yes. That’s intuitive. <br>
> <br>
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No it's not. See below.<br>
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> > Then there’s the fact that the violation of the false-promise has happened right in front of FairVote’s face, at least in Burlington & Alaska.<br>
> <br>
> Whose ballots didn’t count for their next choices? If I were an Alaska voter and I ranked Begich first, my vote would go to whomever I ranked second. If I were a Palin or Peltola voter, it would still count for my first choice.<br>
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The point is that the largest portion of Palin voters in Alaska (or the Wright voters in Burlington) actually *had* marked the centrist candidate (Begich in Alaska or Montroll in Burlington) as their 2nd-choice vote. They were promised that if they couldn't get their 1st choice (that is, if their 1st-choice candidate is defeated) that their 2nd-choice vote would be counted.<br>
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That promise was not kept.<br>
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It's never kept for the voters for the loser in the IRV final round, but most of the time (99.2% in the U.S.) it doesn't make any difference. But in these two elections it *did* make a difference. So these Palin voters and these Wright voters that were promised (like we all were promised) that they could freely vote for their favorite candidate without fear of wasting their vote and helping elect the candidate they hated, that promise was not kept. Simply by marking their favorite candidate as #1, they literally *caused* the election of their least-favorite candidate.<br>
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r b-j . _ . _ . _ . _ <a href="mailto:rbj@audioimagination.com" target="_blank">rbj@audioimagination.com</a><br>
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"Imagination is more important than knowledge."<br>
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