First off, why did you feel the need to be so condescending in that message? Mr. Small never said, "I think those folks at the CVD are fools." He never said, "I'm special and they should change because I want them to." He asks a legitimate question... should he, "become a member of CVD and try to persuade them to change?" Nothing disrespectful abut it. He has not been privy to a long and drawn-out debate that may have motivated your harsh response. Yet you chose to put him down for the length of your response. Really, try keep it professional when others have treated you in kind. If you manage to get into an ugly argument with Mr. Ossipoff, then at least you won't be the sole participant.
Now... as for the actual election methods... I do hesitate in trying since you have surely heard and disregarded most of the good arguments against IRV many times. But perhaps I can strike a chord that others missed, so I will make an effort. Please note that I am only criticizing IRV for single-winner elections; it works fine (in its STV form) for multi-winner elections with sufficiently large (i.e. many seats) districts. First off, let me refer you to a web site that summarizes things. You can follow links provided in the body of the message to get more information on problems with IRV. http://www.electionmethods.org/IRVproblems.htm Now that that is out of the way, I can jump to a specific example. Now, I agree that IRV works fine at removing the "spoiler" problem. That is, as long as two parties remain dominant, IRV prevents minor third parties from interfering. This is why and how it has "worked" in the single winner Australian elections; it has kept the third party down. Every voting reform (except maybe Borda) does a good job of preventing the spoiler problem. The problem with IRV arises when the third party is no longer guaranteed to lose. Imagine, for a moment, that I am heading to the polls to vote for President of the USA in 2000. Only in this reality, Nader is far more popular in the polls than he was... basically all three candidates are rather close, with Bush slightly ahead of Nader, who is slightly ahead of Gore. But all three are very close. The question is simple... who do I vote for if I support Nader, but I like Gore more than Bush? (obviously not an unlikely situation). In Condorcet voting, the choice is obvious. I vote Nader, Gore, Bush in that order. If Nader manages to out-place both Gore and Bush, I get my top choice (Nader). If Nader does not win, I have voted for Gore in the Gore-Bush election. An easy vote to cast. With Condorcet voting, Gore is extremely likely to win, since he is the middle, compromise choice of the three candidates. (Note: the specter of three-way ties is one some like to bring up, but can you think of a realistic situation where it will happen? In this scenario, it requires a score of people voting Bush-Nader-Gore or a similarly illogical combination. If someone tried to "force" a tie by voting insincerely like this, they would be far more likely to shoot themselves in the foot by electing the person they pushed up in their rankings. Three way ties require a very strange and non-intuitive set of preferences by the electorate. When they exist, there's usually a good reason and they shouldn't be ignored.) In Approval voting, I clearly vote for Nader, and then I decide whether to vote for Gore. If I think that Nader is likely to lose to Bush, then I vote Gore as well. Not a very easy decision, but at least an obvious one. Gore is again likely to win the election, although it's not for sure. In Borda Count... well I don't like Borda Count very much, but it can work well in this case. I vote Nader, Gore, Bush in that order. Gore probably gets a lot of second place votes from the supporters of the other two candidates, and wins the election. In IRV... how you vote depends on how much you trust the polls. If you assume (it seems reasonable) that the Gore voters will split between Nader and Bush about evenly, then it looks like Bush will win the election, since he's a little ahead of Nader in the polls. But maybe the Gore voters will break over to Nader enough to pass Bush in the second round, or maybe Nader is actually ahead and the polls are off. So you could either cross your fingers and vote Nader, Gore, Bush, or you could switch your top two and vote Gore, Nader, Bush. That way, you could help beat your top choice (Nader) but make sure all the Nader voters join up with Gore and beat Bush. You would be hedging your bets. But what if Nader would have beaten Bush in the runoff? Things are close enough that it's very possible. You have to vote based on how accurate you think the polls are, and how evenly you think Gore voters will split. Not an easy decision. Furthermore, if Bush voters think that Bush is a safe bet to make the last round, but Nader is likely to lose a close race to Gore (maybe because of those insincere Nader voters), they can actually make Bush win the election by putting him at the bottom of their list behind Nader. Basically, they are giving their votes to Nader in the hopes that they make Gore lose in the first round, get half the Gore voters in return and get Bush to win the runoff. A risky vote, and a bizarre result, but quite possible. This is the problem with IRV in close multi-candidate races: things become erratic and voters have all sorts of non-intuitive options on how to "play the game" to get the best result. The above was not a far-fetched example. It doesn't require strange initial preferences of a very specific set of percentages. It only requires a three-way race with some uncertainty in the outcome. This is what will happen in the USA if a third party ever challenges the other two. If IRV is implemented, then perhaps we will be "lucky" like the voters in the 1 seat/district Australian House or in the too-small Maltese districts, and we will remain in a two-party duopoly. Or perhaps we would end up with unpredictable and erratic elections like the one I have described above. But personally, I would prefer to have stable elections that made for real multi-party competition in single-winner elections, like Condorcet would provide. If you choose to respond, please do address the example and explain why IRV will succeed where the other voting methods fail. -Adam Adam Tarr, Ph.D. Student Purdue University School of Electrical and Computer Engineering [EMAIL PROTECTED] (765)743-7287
