On 11/22/2011 1:03 PM, David L Wetzell wrote:
dlw: All analysis shows that the perceived problems with IRV are seriously attenuated with only 3 candidates. This is why it's a shame not to add IRV3/AV3 to the list of endorsed methods, since it always uses IRV with only 3 candidates and addresses other concerns like precinct summarizability.
If IRV3/AV is a round of Approval counting followed by a round of IRV among the top three choices, then the declaration already covers that situation. Note that the section about rounds of voting (which Peter Zbornik wisely requested restoring) allows for this combination.
In this case, you are mainly saying that IRV works well when there are only three choices, and that's something you can state in your signature.
Note that all methods produce fewer surprise results when there are fewer choices. Going from the two-choice limit of plurality voting to the three-choice limit of IRV doesn't seem like the big improvement we want to support.
According to some IRV proponents, the more IRV is used, the more choices it fosters. Yet you are saying that too many choices leads to its weakness of only handling three choice fairly. That combination of benefits doesn't seem like a good strategy for promoting IRV.
If my understanding of IRV3/AV is mistaken, please give me the "elevator pitch" explanation -- I haven't had time to follow lots of details on all the discussions here. Such an explanation would also be needed if the method is marketable.
Another thought: Simplicity is an important advantage of IRV, and I wonder if that is lost when methods are combined.
I'm not yet seeing anything that the declaration doesn't already say that needs to be said. You may regard this perspective as biased, but as you have also said, public criticism of election methods tends to be quite rigorous, perhaps even more rigorous than the criticisms here.
Richard Fobes ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
