James Gilmour wrote:
Kristofer Munsterhjelm > Sent: Sunday, November 23, 2008 4:11 PM
I'm not Kevin, but I think I can comment. In any method that's [some
base method] + runoff, where the runoff candidates are picked from the
social ordering of the base method, the existence of the second round
would increase the incentive to strategize.
So what happened to the incentive to strategize in the first round of
the 2002 French Presidential election?
First Round Results
Jacques Chirac Rally for France (RPF) 19.83%
Jean-Marie Le Pen National Front (FN) 16.91%
Lionel Jospin Socialist Party (PS) 16.14%
François Bayrou Union for French Democracy (UDF) 6.84%
Arlette Laguiller Workers' Struggle (LO) 5.73%
Jean-Pierre Chevènement Citizens' Movement (MC) 5.33%
Noël Mamère Greens (Vert) 5.24%
Olivier Besancenot Revolutionary Communist League (LCR) 4.26%
Jean Saint-Josse Hunting, Fishing, Nature and Traditions (CPNT) 4.25%
Alain Madelin Liberal Democracy (DL) 3.92%
Robert Hue Communist Party (PCF) 3.38%
Bruno Mégret National Republican Movement (MNR) 2.35%
Christiane Taubira Radical Left Party 2.32%
Corinne Lepage Citizenship, Action, Participation Movement (MCAP) 1.88%
Christine Boutin Social Republican Forum (FRS) 1.19%
Daniel Gluckstein Workers' Party (PT) 0.47%
ELECTORATE: 40,320,334
TURNOUT: 29,149,143
There was no strategizing (that I can see), and the left-leaning parties
split the vote. TTR isn't perfect, I never claimed that.
When I wrote my reply, I was referring to the kind of strategy that
could backfire on the voters if it's taken too far - something like
burial in Condorcet. That is the sort of strategy you wouldn't want, and
I said that I thought runoff systems would have more of them in the
first round because the stakes would be lower. On the other hand, the
second round, or last if there are more than two, must be (and is) honest.
I am a bit surprised that nobody were doing any sort of pushover
strategy here, but then, they might; there's too little information to
say and I don't know the general French opinion at the time.
The second round of this TTRO election was a choice between one
candidate from the centre-right and one candidate from the extreme
right, despite two-thirds of the voters supporting candidates from
the left.
Jacques Chirac received 25,316,647 votes (82.14%) and Jean-Marie Le
Pen received 5,502,314 (17.85%). Around 4% of votes were spoilt
in protest and 20% of the electorate did not vote.
I am convinced that had this been an exhaustive ballot (multi-round
run-off), IRV or Condorcet election, the result would have been
quite different. Certainly the final "top two" choice would have been
very different.
Plurality is a really bad method. TTR is better, but TTR is ultimately
based on Plurality. Condorcet + top two, or Approval + top two, or
something like that, would have provided better results as well, I
think; the question is whether it'd be sufficiently better than the
method without top two that it'd be worth it.
If you're referring to how I've earlier supported TTR above IRV, well,
in this case, IRV might have given the right result. But then again, the
dynamics could have been different. Would there have been that many
parties had all previous elections been IRV and not TTR?
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