I love this analysis! But I disagree with its conclusion. Tom Holtzleiter has clearly shown a limitation of the IRV system. To win, you have to crack the top two in the initial balloting. In other words, the risk of using IRV is that the best candidate may not crack the top two. Tom says that this makes the IRV system as prone to errors as the current system. But the current system has an additional huge risk--squashing people's interest in the electoral process.
You've heard all this: In the current system, lots of people won't vote for their preferred candidate. Since "third party" candidates are unlikely to win, people have to wrestle with either 1) "voting their consciences" or 2) supporting the "lesser of two evils". The ripple effects: The best candidates are less likely to join "3rd parties". "3rd party" candidates have a harder time getting financing for their campaigns. Etc. If as Tom says, the risk of errors in the two systems is the same, I'd love to see Minneapolis go to IRV because it is head and shoulders above in cultivating real buy-in and involvement. That's what democracy is about, and that's what Minneapolis should be about. Tom Brady-Leighton Seward > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Thursday, August 22, 2002 6:23 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Mpls digest, Vol 1 #981 - 19 msgs > > > Message: 7 > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Date: Wed, 21 Aug 2002 22:51:25 -0700 > Subject: Re: [Mpls] Instant Runoff Voting > > If anyone disagrees that IRV is superior to our > current system, please point out how and why. > > ********************* > > > Take a three candidate election, 1 liberal, one conservative, one > independent. For simplicity, use 12 voters (in real life you would > need to expand the percentages) > > 5 prefer the liberal candidate, with the independent candidate as a > second choice. > 4 prefer the conservative with the independent as a second choice. > 2prefer the independent with the conservative as a second choice. > 1prefer the independent with the liberal as a second choice. > > > Clearly the independent would be the most agreeable choice with all > voters. However the independent looses in the first round of instant > run-off because they received the lowest initial votes (lowest > primary votes). The people who voted for the independent has their > second choice votes instead, and one of the others get elected. > > This is just one simple example of that system failing in the almost > identical way our current vote for 1 system would. > In the current system, people would say the independent wont win, and > split that vote among the other two, with a resulting statistical > near dead heat much like republicans and democrats currently have in > the nation. > > When you run the numbers in various ways, most of the time BOTH > systems works, sometimes BOTH don't. But as a whole, I don't see IRV > as superior because it has as many failings as the vote for 1 system > we currently have-at least when I did the math. (Might not be saying > much there) > > But I think you would need to look at the probability of each failing > and compare those. In practice each system will work AND fail in > different ways. > > For the city to look at adopting a new system, I would like failure > comparison (since that's what we're trying to fix) not just > advantages of each, or the failures of one and not the other. > > > Tom Holtzleiter > Kingfield > _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
