Venzke: In my opinion you could find that a failure of virtually any criterion is unconstitutional. That's why I don't think this is a promising way to try to defeat methods we don't like. I think it's mostly dangerous. I say we had best not give the referees invitations to ban all our methods.
--WDS replies: true. However, you have no choice but to enter this arena because an anti-IRV lawsuit has already been filed. I personally feel that IRV's constitutionality is more questionable than range, approval, plurality, and Condorcet. To make fun of the "contingency" argument: We have to decide what flavor pizza to buy. I vote "in the contingency we live in New York, I want onion." You do not get to use that contingncy and we DO live in New York. Fair? Well, that kind of thing happens with IRV. However, note that a different version of the same argument could be used to attack the constituionality of plurality voting (which is clearly constituional so the argument must be questionable?): Nader voters, in the contingency itis Gore V Bush, are prevented from having an effect; Gore voters are not prevented. Discriminatory against one class of voters, and again manipulable by, e.g. Bush SPONSORING Nader to disenfranshise a class of voters. -- Warren D. Smith http://RangeVoting.org <-- add your endorsement (by clicking "endorse" as 1st step) and math.temple.edu/~wds/homepage/works.html ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
