I see some good thoughts here, but will expand some..
On Jan 11, 2010, at 11:45 AM, robert bristow-johnson wrote:
On Jan 11, 2010, at 8:54 AM, Kathy Dopp wrote:
2010/1/10 Stéphane Rouillon <[email protected]>:
Abd Ul,
from the data you produce, I agree that for the Burlington
election, IRV did
produce the same result
FPTP would have produced.
No it did not. FPTP would have produced different voting behavior and
elected the Condorcet winner because voters were fooled into thinking
that IRV allowed them to vote sincerely. A Republican has not won for
Mayor in Burlington for over a decade. Most of the people who
preferred the Republican first would have voted for the Democrat
highly unlikely, Kathy. in fact, certainly not the case in
Burlington. it would be the Progs and the Dems both wondering if
they should vote for the other (wondering which left-leaning party
is more established in Burlington).
the old law required 40% plurality, otherwise it goes to a runoff
about a month later. no one thinks, with the Dem in 3rd place with
1st-choice votes, that the runoff would be between *any* other than
the Prog and the GOP. if turnout for the runoff is good, the Prog
would win. if turnout was poor, who knows? i've see *two* city
council elections go to runoff in Ward 7 and both times, the GOP
candidate came from behind (*not* having the plurality on Election
Day) and beat the other candidate (one time the Indie, the other
time the Dem). but it was with half the turnout or less. GOPers
seem to be more diligent in getting back to the polls on Runoff Day.
and
only a few hundred of those needed to do so for the Democrat to win.
Plurality is far better than IRV for many many reasons including:
1. preserves the right to cast a vote that always positively affects
the chances of winning of the candidate one votes for
and more often than not, *hurt* the credible candidate that is
politically more aligned with the candidate one votes for.
50,000 voting for Nader elected W in 2000. that is a matter of fact.
Plurality does that only when you vote for one who has a possibility
of winning. Sometimes doing that prevents voting for the one you
prefer but expect to lose.
2. allows all voters the right to participate in the final counting
round in the case of top two runoff or primary/general elections
but IRV does that in an instantaneous way UNLESS some voter changes
their mind about their alternative candidate. IRV or Condorcet (or
any ranked ballot) requires the voter to choose *and* *commit* to
not just their favorite, but their fallback candidate on the same
Election Day.
With Condorcet the voting is all done on one election day, and all
that the voters rank are considered in the counting.
While the candidates and voters must do their preparation before that
one act of voting, that single voting round should be all that is
needed for the counting and deciding on winner.
Note that primaries may be used, but there is no need for them such as
is true for plurality - multiple candidates for a party can be voted
for in a Condorcet general election, with voters ranking such
candidates if and when they choose.
3. preserves voters' right to understandably verify the election
outcomes because the counting is simple enough for them to do,
precinct summable
so does Condorcet.
And Condorcet gives a more accurate view since the ballots more
completely state voters desires and all that they say gets counted.
4. preserves the right for local precinct control of the counts or in
the case of election contests that cross county lines, local county
control of the counting process
so does Condorcet. i like precinct summable too, but it isn't the
end-all requirement for an honest election.
5. is far less costly than the IRV counting process
not in Burlington. once the infrastructure was set up (the ballot
scanning machines didn't have to be changed at all, the difference
is that the precinct results (that had a record for how each ballot
looked) were transferred to city hall and a computer did the rest.
because of FoI laws, this record is available for public scrutiny
and has been scrutinized.
Topic seems to be that a second look at a ballot is required in IRV
after it is determined that the top rank lost. In Condorcet all the
looking is done in one pass.
Dave Ketchum
6. fails fewer of Arrow's fairness criteria than IRV/STV does
but it (plurality) has the worst failures. this is what has been
well known for decades and why election reformers sought something
better. IRV is sorta better but brought it's own pathologies into
it. Condorcet easily beats FPTP in a context where there are 3 or 4
credible candidates.
--
r b-j [email protected]
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
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