--- On Sun, 7/27/08, Terry Bouricius <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> From: Terry Bouricius <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting
> To: [email protected]
> Date: Sunday, July 27, 2008, 3:32 PM
> Different election methods provide different incentives to
> candidates...Under IRV, or two-round runoff, a candidate
> who is nobody's
> first choice cannot win (they will be eliminated) even if
> this candidate
> would be a good compromise (or merely an inoffensive
> candidate avoiding
> all controversial issues), whereas under Condorcet or Borda
> (for example)
> a candidate who is nobody's first choice CAN win. Thus
> IRV prompts
> candidates to "stand-out" enough to win a lot of
> FIRST choices and reach
> out for second choices as well, while that strategy of
> stressing first
> choices may hurt the candidate under Condorcet or Borda.
> IRV advocates
> argue (rightly, I think) that it strikes a favorable
> balance between
> seeking first choices ("core" support) and
> alternate rankings ("broad"
> support), when compared to methods that disregard whether a
> candidate
> received any first preferences.
>
Why are you assuming that standing out means taking clear policy positions? It
could just as easy mean running more ads than anyone else or having a more
telegenic family or a more famous name. There are a lot of voters who base
their first, not their later, preferences on just those things, and we know
that because they're often enough to carry a plurality election which only
considers first preferences. For that matter, "core support" could mean nothing
more than coming second to last all the way to the end. That's unlikely, but no
more unlikely than a candidate with no first-place support running a campaign
strong enough to make him a Condorcet winner.
Regardless of whether voters are making a good choice, if a majority favors one
candidate over another, none of us, FairVote included, are qualified to tell it
that it must take the candidate it voted AGAINST just to satisfy some airy
theoretical concern about having the "right" amount of first-place support, as
if we could even tell what that is. It's especially senseless when the people
who advocate setting aside a majority vote to satisfy their theories will turn
around and act like populists attacking the ivory tower when anyone brings up
theoretical criteria that actually make sense.
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