In a message dated 3/13/05 3:52:05 AM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>>IRV is much easier to explain than Condorcet, and I believe that >>is the primary reason that it is more popular. > > Jim Lindsay is probably speaking from experience when he says > that IRV is only "somewhat" easy to explain. The basic concept of Condorcet, which I think should be called Instant Round Robin (IRR) because like IRV it is basically a self-explanatory term whereas "Condorcet" is not self-explanatory at all, is easier to explain than Instant Runoff. You just explain that the purpose of IRR is to simulate one to one contests between each candidate and each other candidate. The candidate who defeats all the others in one to one contests is the winner. Challenge your audience to give one good reason why the candidate who defeats all the others one to one should not be elected. It's virtually a no brainer. The reasons anyone gives are sure to be both debatable and complicated, and probably the only people who will come up with any reasons at all are people who have been sold already on IRV. IRR is at least as easy to explain as IRV, whose purpose is to simulate a series of rounds of runoff elections, with one candidate eliminated per round. That raises a lot of questions. Why, for example, eliminate only one per round when in conventional runoff elections the typical procedure is to eliminate all but the top two? Yes, I know there are reasons, but they require explanation, which increases the difficulty of explaining IRV. The only problem with IRR is when there is no Condorcet winner. But as far as I know, elections with no CW are totally theoretical. For them to happen would require voters to seriously confused about their preferences for different candidates. Does anyone know of a single actual election conducted with IRR where there was not a Condorcet winner? Furthermore, there are problems with IRV that are at least as serious as the theoretical problem of an election without a Condorcet winner, especially the problem of IRV spoilers. The one advantage of IRV is that the certainty of coming up with an indisputable winner using that method is perhaps greater than with IRR. But what kind of advantage is that? The certainty of coming up with in indisputable winner with plurality is about the same as with IRV. -Ralph Suter ---- Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
