12. Dopp: Not all ballots are treated equally
This charge reveals a lack of understanding of how IRV works.
Actually, no. It reveals a different perspective.
All ballots are treated equally.
The meaning of this is unclear. From one point of
view, the FairVote claim is true. From another, it is not.
Every one has one and only one vote in each
round of counting. Just as in a traditional
runoff, your ballot counts first for your
favorite candidate and continues to count for
that candidate as long as he or she has a chance to win.
But it is *not* "just as it is in a traditional
runoff." Elimination in traditional runoffs is
usually provisional, the candidates are not
actually prohibited from winning the runoff. Plus
every voter in a two-round runoff has the
opportunity to participate in the runoff.
In an IRV "instant runoff," based on an RCV
ballot, voters who sincerely rank their three
preferred candidates cannot participate in the
instant runoff, unless one of the top two at the
end is among the three. So IRV does not treat all *voters* equally.
You only get to participate in the real election
if (1) the two leading candidates are among your
top three preferences, or (2) you vote insincerely.
Further, many voters have reasonable knowledge of
only one or two candidates. They do not have
enough information to intelligently rank
remaining candidates. But if there is a real
runoff, typically there are two candidates, one
of whom will almost certainly win, and the voters
can study them with much more focus. This, again,
is mentioned by Robert's Rules as a problem with
avoiding runoffs with preferential voting.
Your rankings should be considered as backup
choices. Your ballot will only count for one of
your lesser preferences if your favorite
candidate has been eliminated. Every ballot
counts as one vote for your highest ranked
candidate who is still in the running in every round of counting.
That's how it works, indeed. FairVote is here
describing, as it always does, the Later-No-Harm
criterion as if it were a feature of IRV, when it
is a bug. In a joint decision that might need to
be made by neighbors, one who refused to reveal
what compromises might be acceptable to him would
properly be considered selfish or churlish. Yet
Later-No-Harm proposes this as a virtue. Only if
it has become absolutely clear that you can't get
your favorite would you let on that something else might be almost as good.
Let me put it this way. If friends used IRV to
choose what ice cream to buy, they might not
remain friends. They should use, for simplicity,
Approval Voting, and I've seen approval used to
make complex choices in groups that value group
unity and harmony. It works. And people vote
sincerely. Generally, in direct democratic
process, whatever decision is going to be made
ends up being ratified by an explicit majority
vote, so all the strategic voting baggage disappears.
Note that courts have upheld IRV for this very
reason and Roberts Rules of Order recommends it
over plurality voting. For quotations from a
court decision upholding IRV's equal treatment
of ballots, please see <1> below.
He repeated the Robert's Rules comment about
plurality, because, of course, that's about all
he can extract from it. I'm not going to comment
on the courts ruling regarding IRV ballots, for
several reasons, starting with my view that I
don't think a constitutional challenge to IRV
should be sustained. Even though it doesn't treat all ballots equally.
To be continued with:
Dopp: 13:Costly.
----
Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
