At 08:48 PM 2/4/2010, robert bristow-johnson wrote:
... you're running away from the salient question. are those 9 piles good enough to resolve the IRV election with 3 candidates or not? was salient information lost when the M>K pile was combined with the M>K>W pile, enough that could cause the IRV election (with the rules above) to be decided differently?
Yes, salient information was lost, or, more accurately, could have been lost if those were first round totals reported to central tabulation. Once we know that only three candidates are eligible to have votes counted, and if a "majority of votes" is irrelevant, i.e., IRV is being used as a plurality method, so that "majority" can mean something other than "majority of ballots containing a vote," then, yes, M>K and M>K>W are exactly equivalent.
But we cannot know this until all other candidates have been eliminated, we cannot know which candidates have been eliminated, not from a single precinct's point of view. The precinct must report, at least, the first round totals for all candidates, and write-ins lumped, at least, and those reports are completely missing from what RBJ proposes. Then, for the report to be useful for later tabulation with no further report to central tabulation, it must contain, for each candidate, subsequent rankings, so that the effect of eliminating that particular candidate can be known.
Lumping write-ins, there are thus six candidates, not five, and certainly not three. How could a precinct limit itself to reporting only votes for three candidates when there are five on the ballot plus write-in? What's the algorithm?
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