Dear Eric, you will never win this discussion.
Even when IRV was being used and the election of candidate A caused some public outcry and even when you have enough data to prove that some other election method would have elected some other candidate B, IRV supporters will reject this example as irrelevant. They will argue that you cannot prove that the election of candidate B wouldn't have caused the same outcry. Or they will argue that you cannot prove that in the long run IRV causes more public outcry that a given other election method. Markus Schulze ---- Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
