I want to take a shot at The Allure of IRV. If I understand correctly from various postings on this list over a period of time, Australian voters routinely vote "above the line."
To me that means that they consider STV to be too much effort. The ranked ballots are a chore for the average voter. IRV has its allure for voting activists and reformers, but not for typical voters, at least not after the shine wears off. Typical voters just want anything that ameliorates the spoiler problem and doesn't cost a lot in taxes or voting effort. Suppose that we stick to the traditional one bit (two level) ballot, so that existing equipment can handle the count, in an effort to keep the cost down. Then Approval is the obvious choice, even though it requires the voter to come up with an "approval cutoff" or otherwise strain the brain on how to vote. Suppose that all voters decided to approve their plurality choice (the one they would have voted for under lone mark plurality) and anybody they considered better. This would be as easy as voting under plurality, and would yield vastly superior results on average. Another option for one bit ballots is for voters to use the ballots to designate candidates as proxies, and then let the candidates vote on behalf of their respective supporters in a more complicated style "runoff" or election completion, whether by Condorcet (of whatever stripe) or Approval. The Australian situation, where voting "above the line" is the rule rather than the exception, has (in effect) degenerated into a defective version of proxy runoff, where you can designate a party as proxy, but not a candidate, and where the runoff is by STV instead of Condorcet or Approval. It's like paying for an Edsel and ending up with a Nova. Another possibility is an approval/proxy hybrid: all ballots are deemed Approval ballots except that bullet votes are considered proxy designations, etc. Now, if we go to ballots more complicated than one bit per candidate, then we need really great voter appeal to justify it. A three level ballot might have significantly greater appeal than a two level ballot if used as follows: If no candidate gets more than fifty percent of the top votes, then the candidate with the fewest bottom level votes wins. Essentially it is Approval with an expressive feature that wouldn't make any difference in practice. Also, it could be considered Bucklin done right. If it isn't instrumentally superior to Approval and it is more costly in ballot type, counting equipment, etc. then why consider it? It would be worth the extra cost if it appealed to the voters more, because of their desire to show clear favoritism towards their favorites. >From my experience, that is the main allure of IRV over Approval among those who have been exposed to both but still prefer IRV; they want a method that allows them to exalt their favorite strictly above their compromise, whether or not they understand that IRV can and will penalize them for this luxury, from time to time. Who would object to "Bucklin Done Right" if they were told ... "Put two check marks next to your favorite's name, and one mark next to the name of each acceptable alternative. If nobody's favorite gets a majority, then the candidate acceptable to the greatest number of voters is declared winner."? What do you think? Forest ---- For more information about this list (subscribe, unsubscribe, FAQ, etc), please see http://www.eskimo.com/~robla/em
