Few quick comments on the referred page.
1. Dopp: "Does not solve the "spoiler" problem except in special
cases…."
Whenever a third party or independent candidate is unlikely to be
one of the top vote-getters (true in over 99% of U.S. elections),
May be true today in U.S. if one assumes two major parties and mostly
minor contenders. The situation may change if party structure and
candidate nomination style change.
the issue of whether to vote for your favorite choice, or to rank
your compromise choice first can resurface in this unique
circumstance. But this is extremely rare and no different than a
candidate in a party’s political primary arguing “Vote for me
because I am more electable in the general election.”
It is true that although IRV has spoiler related problems also the
current system in U.S. has corresponding problems that may be worse.
Word "unique" is too strong.
2. Dopp: “Requires centralized vote counting procedures at the
state-level…"
IRV creates no need to centralize the counting or the ballots
themselves,
Ireland seems to have centralized control of the counting process and
centralized counting of the final results although the actual votes
seem to be held and handled locally as instructed by the centralized
controller. (This was explained later in point 9.)
9. Dopp: “Could necessitate counting all presidential votes in
Washington, D.C.…”
Note that voters certainly would be pleased to have a majority
winner in elections for our highest office.
IRV indeed digs out one sort of majority (or plurality, depending on
how one counts majority) at the last round but there could be other
rivals that have other kind of majority claims to support them.
10. Dopp: “IRV entrenches the two-major-political party system …”
IRV neither "entrenches" nor "overthrows" the two-party system. It
simply ensures no candidate wins over majority opposition.
IRV may not elect a candidate that wins any other candidate by
majority. Saying that it "ensures no candidate wins over majority
opposition" twists the facts a bit too much. Not measuring the
majority opinion in the counting process does not give the right to
say that it doesn't exist.
IRV favours large parties with lots of first place support and does
not favour candidates with limited number of first place support but
that may however have lots of second and later place support. This to
some extent maintains the two-party system.
Relating to multi-party representation, any winner-take-all, single
seat election method tends towards two dominant parties, at least
in any given geographic area.
Good information. Having single seat districts has a major impact on
the outcome.
To allow for multiple parties to regularly win office,
jurisdictions should adopt a form of proportional representation in
which candidates will be able to win office with less than 50% of
the vote.
Fairvote is interested in seeking even better methods and is
obviously not stuck to stubbornly promoting IRV only. Maybe Fairvote
understands also the limitations of IRV (and maybe sees it as an
intermediate step).
11. Dopp: "Could deliver unreasonable outcomes…."
Unreasonable outcomes are less likely with IRV than with any other
single-seat voting method in use today.
This statement is too strong. Term "unreasonable" is of course also
not well defined (IRV supporters e.g. often seem to think that
extensive first place support is a requirement while others think
differently).
12. Dopp: “Not all ballots are treated equally…”
This charge reveals a lack of understanding of how IRV works.
Maybe one could say something weaker like that all preferences
expressed in the ballots are not "treated equally" or taken into
account when determining the winner.
14. Dopp: “Increases the potential for undetectable vote fraud and
erroneous vote counts…"
Actually, just the opposite is true,
I wouldn't claim that IRV makes fraud/error detecting generally
easier. (Individual IRV users may have good practices though.)
Juho
On Jun 12, 2008, at 6:50 , Greg wrote:
The FairVote document that debunks Dopp's claims is available at:
http://www.fairvote.org/dopp
Greg
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 09:19:36 -0700 (PDT)
From: Chris Benham <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [Election-Methods] I Need Reviews of "Ten Reasons to
Oppose IRV"
To: EM <[email protected]>
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Kathy Dopp has persisted in producing a paper on IRV. She concludes:
"Ranked choice (RCV) / instant runoff voting (IRV) is not worthy of
consideration and its use should be avoided."
Chris Benham
The eight page report "15 Flaws and 3 Benefits of Instant Runoff or
Ranked Choice Voting" explains the flaws and benefits of instant
runoff voting in detail plus provides appendices with examples of how
RCV/IRV violates fairness principles, plus provides three pages of
endnotes of references and additional facts.
The full report is available on-line at
http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/RCV-IRV/
InstantRunoffVotingFlaws.pdf
This release is also posted online at
http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/RCV-IRV/FlawsIRV-
PressRelease.pdf
or at http://kathydopp.com/serendipity/
Get the name you always wanted with the new y7mail email
address.
www.yahoo7.com.au/mail
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