---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Kathy Dopp <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2011 13:11:44 -0400 Subject: Re: [EM] hello from DLW of "A New Kind of Party":long time electoral reform enthusiast/iconoclast-wannabe. >>>> >>>> 6b. I think that IRV3 can be improved upon by treating the up to three >>>>> ranked choices as approval votes in a first round to limit the number of >>>>> candidates to three then the rankings of the three can be sorted into 10 >>>>> categories and the number of votes in each category can be summarized at >>>>> the precinct level. >>>>>
Great Idea! dlw: I like to think so... KD:Although I would reduce the number of approval winners out of the 3 rankings to two (2) rather than to 3 in order to avoid the spoiler effect that rears it's ugly head in IRV so often whenever there are 3 strong candidates. dlw: Well, it's not that often that there are 3 strong candidates. And, there's something to be said for uncertainty as a spice to increase voter interest in elections. I think that over time and place that the "spoiler effect" would get mitigated, not unlike as already happens with FPTP elections that tend to be competitive, as opposed to what exists in many "more local" elections that are rarely competitive. KD:Treating the first round of an IRV election as an approval election to reduce the field to two candidates would be a great way to make IRV fairly count the choices of *all* voters rather than the hopelessly unfair way IRV counts only some voters' 2nd choices when their 1st choice is eliminated. dlw: It's not unfair if the other voters' 1st choices are among the remaining top candidate... Fair is not self-evident in practice... We all tend to see the splinter in the eye of others' election rules and to ignore the plank in our own preferred election rules. KD:I wonder if such a system would also eliminate nonmonotonicity, which makes IRV fail more of Arrow's fairness criteria even than plurality? dlw: I think we just got to keep the odds of non-monotonicity low enuf that it doesn't dysfunctionally affect behavior, which isn't likely since it's more of a "sour grapes" phenomena... KD:I would probably support this far fairer system Approval/IRV system because it would tend to reduce the horrific effects of the Later No Harm Criteria that often prevents the Condorcet winner from being elected via the unfair IRV method of counting rank choice ballots. dlw: rejoice!!! Kathy Dopp http://electionmathematics.org Town of Colonie, NY 12304 "One of the best ways to keep any conversation civil is to support the discussion with true facts." "Renewable energy is homeland security." Fundamentals of Verifiable Elections http://kathydopp.com/wordpress/?p=174 View some of my research on my SSRN Author page: http://ssrn.com/author=1451051
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