Adam Tarr said: > James Gilmour wrote: > >>But the thinking behind the use of the word in this context is also >> instructive. >>You have to remember that IRV is nothing more than a convenient method >> of condensing an exhaustive ballot into one voting operation. (It also >> avoids all >>the horse-trading that typically takes place between the successive >> rounds of an >>exhaustive ballot, but that's a different issue.) > > Some have argued that this "horse trading" allows compromise candidates > to stave off defeat.
I wonder if people will be more aware of the strategic aspects of runoff voting if it is done with successive elections rather than a single round (IRV). Save we have 3 candidates, and in pairwise contests B>A, C>A, B>C. If B is running last in the count of first-place votes, we all know that IRV gives individuals with the preference A>B>C to insincerely rank B first. Same for 2-step runoff (which is formally equivalent to IRV with 3 candidates, although not with 4+ candidates). When is a voter more likely to think "I need to make sure my conquering compromise makes it into round 2 rather than my doomed favorite": IRV or 2-step runoff? I don't claim to have an answer to that psychological question, but it would be interesting if somebody has done that study. My hunch is that 2-step runoff encourages clearer thinking on the issue, but that is just a hunch. I'm not claiming 2-step runoff is overall better than IRV, just that there's an interesting psychological question here. Alex ---- Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
