robert bristow-johnson wrote:
Well, that's sad. Even with a sorta narrow victory the anti-IRVers will
swagger down Church Street like they own the place. We will now all
accept that God instituted the "traditional ballot" for use forever and
that a 40% Plurality is a "winner".
It would have been optimum if IRV survived this vote by a narrow margin.
It's sad that when FairVote introduced and promoted the ranked ballot
that, from square 1, they always coupled it to the IRV tabulation of
votes. When enough disasters (at least anomalies) happen like in
Burlington or Aspen, some backlash, both ignorant and enlightened, is
bound to happen.
I think that shows that IRV is just not good enough. Of course, I could
be wrong: perhaps it is, as you said, an outcome on par with "Bush wins
the presidency -- in the supreme court", but if it was IRV itself that
gave the opposition enough proverbial ammunition, then that does count
against the method.
Since I prefer Condorcet, I would say that a good method should have
elected Montroll. IRV didn't.
What's really bad is that now people will probably think that the ranked
ballot and IRV are one and the same - that the only way to conduct a
ranked ballot election is by using IRV. That would, absent favorable
development elsewhere (Condorcet efforts that succeed, showing another
way is possible).
What method will be used in Burlington now -- Plurality or runoff? Since
you said 40% earlier, I guess it's a runoff, but 40% sounds odd as a
runoff threshold. Shouldn't it be majority? Anything less and the voters
might have preferred someone else.
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