Hey there, Turkana. Just a quick not to say I've liked your posts here over the past few days. Thanks for your good work.
Reading this one about IRV, it's encouraging to me that there's so much interest in it. Its merits seem self-evident and I think it's a major plank in the progressive platform. As we move through the primary cycle over the next several months and become curious what the platforms of the Republicans and Democrats will say when they do their conventions next summer, I'd be interested to know what a comprehensive progressive platform would look like in comparison.
It's doubtful that IRV will be on the Democrats list of priorities, and I don't think Republicans are even interested in improving the voting process so how would they know about IRV? Still, glad that the concept is repeated here, and elsewhere often enough that it lets more people know about it.
Posted by NealB at December 7, 2007 04:14 PMIRV reduces the power of the incumbency--regardles of party. Its establishment must, therefore, be grass roots.
As for IRV being a partisan issue, look into how the Utah State Republican Party selects its candidate(s).
Posted by Wilson Rivers at December 7, 2007 04:26 PM"In Florida, in the year 2000..."
So I guess I am wrong when I post that Leftists live in a 9/10 world. Leftist actually (still) live in the 11/7 world.
Posted by Bagley at December 7, 2007 05:28 PMneal- thanks! and you and wilson are spot on- it has to come from the grassroots and netroots, because the entrenched powers in both parties will fight it.
bagley- funny thing is that we miss the days when we still had a democratically elected republic, you miss the days before we had one.
Posted by Turkana at December 7, 2007 07:37 PMSo I guess I am wrong when I post that Leftists live in a 9/10 world.
Be afraid bagless, be very afraid.
Bad week for you wasn't it bagless?
No bombing of Iran. In fact I think we can say it was taken off the table.
bu$h lies about when he knew of the NIE report, and then requests Iran to come clean. Stupid fucker!
America finds out our government has been conducting enhanced terrogation techniques (torture) and the CIA delibritely disposes of the evidence.
Have a drink and go to bed bagless, you might have another losing week ahead.
Posted by Seven of Six at December 7, 2007 07:41 PMSomehow, the 'in' didn't show up on 'interrogation'.
And I'm not even drinking... yet!
Katrina Vanden Heuvel repeats numerous outright falsities about Instant Runoff Voting, about which she's been previously corrected by experts on the subject, like Warren D. Smith, the Princeton math Ph.D. who co-founded the Center for Range Voting.
Apparently she doesn't learn very well, because he rigorously corrected her the last time she did this, and she hasn't changed her tune.
http://rangevoting.org/KvdH.html
Clay Shentrup
San Francisco, CA
clay@electopia.org
415.240.1973
While it's clear that our traditional "vote for one" (plurality) voting system is inexcusable, Instant Runoff Voting is not much better - and there are many better simpler solutions. There is also a great deal of public misunderstanding and misinformation surrounding IRV, largely the result of the IRV propaganda organization, FairVote.
One common myth is that IRV elects "majority winners". But IRV can lead to the election of candidate X, even when candidate Y is preferred to X by a huge majority. Consider this hypothetical IRV election.
#voters - their vote
10 G > C > P > M
3 C > G > P > M
5 C > P > M > G
6 M > P > C > G
4 P > M > C > G
C is the clear Condorcet (condor-SAY) winner, meaning he is preferred by a landslide majority over all his individual rivals. He is preferred over G, P, and M all by an 18-10 margin.
But... M wins, even though he also has fewer first-place votes (6 voters) than C with 8.
Also:
1. P is preferred to M by 22 of the 28 voters, yet he's the first candidate eliminated.
2. G also has more first-place votes (10) than M's 6.
3. So M either loses pairwise to, or has fewer first-place votes than (or both) every rival, but still IRV elects M.
Notice that the first group of voters could have caused C to win if they had only "lied", and put him first in their list. That would mean they'd get their second favorite instead of their fourth favorite. Statistical analysis reveals that this strategy is advised for all candidates who don't appear to have at least a 20% chance of winning. That means that, contrary to FairVote propaganda, IRV does not let you "vote your hopes, not your fears". And this means that IRV effectively degrades toward plain old plurality (vote-for-one) voting. This is explained in more detail here, by math experts:
http://rangevoting.org/TarrIrv.html
Election integrity experts and activists, like computer science Ph.D. Rebecca Mercuri disapprove of IRV because it is conducive to the adoption of fraud-susceptible electronic voting machines. IRV is also more susceptible to fraud because it is not countable in precincts. That is, candidate A could win every individual precinct, but bizarrely lose when the ballots are all summed together - which enforces centralized tabulation, which is more susceptible to central fraud conspiracy. And IRV typically causes spoiled ballots to go up by a factor of about 7.
http://rangevoting.org/SPRates.html
A much simpler and far better system is Approval Voting. It's just like the current system, except that there is no limit on the number of candidates one may vote for. While it may seem initially less intuitive than ranking choices, deep scrutiny shows that Approval Voting produces a far more representative outcome, and is less harmed by problems like strategic voting. This is shown through an objective economic measure called Bayesian regret, which shows how well a particular voting method tends to satisfy the preferences of the voters. The improvement gotten by Approval Voting relative to IRV is especially large if the voters are strategic, as was described above (although FairVote promoters will often falsely claim that the best strategy with Approval Voting is to "bullet vote"). See:
http://rangevoting.org/BayRegDum.html
If we don't mind a somewhat more cluttered ballot, we can upgrade to Range Voting, which uses a ratings scale, like Olympics scoring. It is arguably more intuitive, and produces phenomenal Bayesian regret results, meaning more satisfied voters, and more competitive nominees, if used for a party's nomination process (i.e. a big strategic advantage).
For a look at how the major parties could become dramatically more competitive by merely adopting Range Voting or Approval Voting, see:
http://rangevoting.org/ForDems.html
http://rangevoting.org/ForReps.html
Election reformers must be diligent and do their research. Don't be misled by FairVote's clever marketing. Look at what Ivy League mathematicians and political science experts such as Steve Brams, who write entire books on this stuff, say. FairVote has an agenda, and it's definitely not in the pubic's best interest.
Clay Shentrup
San Francisco, CA
415.240.1973
clay@electopia.org
Nice mathematical gameplaying, clay. Try pinning some actual existing political ideologies into your thought experiments and tell us the likely results.
Any examples of the types of "failures" you describe occurring in local elections where the IRV system has been implemented?
Posted by euzoius at December 8, 2007 06:05 AMClay:
You're wasting your time. Game Theory is just too complex for democrats. They prefer anecdotes and y = mx + b regressions (see Sicko for a great example of how the democrats swarm to such childish logic).
I mean they still haven't come to realize the probability of their vote swinging a federal election in a country with 300 million people is about 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001%
Hi Turkana,
Only here because you said you were.
The analysis of the instant run-off is too cute by far.
I actually did vote for Ralph Nader and would not have voted for Al Gore anymore than George Bush. The assumption that Nader voters were automatically Gore voters if Nader were eliminated is simply not true, not to mention that Gore probably won the vote.
It is the flip side of the even more laughable claim that Perot voters were Republican voters.
I voted for Perot too.
As long as both parties run conservatives, they will play hell getting my vote.
Best, Terry
Posted by terry hallinan at December 8, 2007 08:13 AMUnfortunately, this "instant runoff voting" gave us Ed Jew in San Francisco. He is a total crook, who has been living in Burlingame, a city on the peninsula, some fifteen miles south of San Francisco. He is currently under indictment with a dozen or so felonies for his criminal doings. I don't know if we should blame "instant runoff voting" for this, but it is obviously not a cure-all...
Posted by james k. sayre at December 8, 2007 11:10 AMIsn't there a theorem that lists the requirements for a balloting system (security, accuracy, anonymity, resistance to strategy voting, etc.) then proves that they cannot all be satisfied?
If so, why not outlaw plurality voting and require a majority by whatever runoff system deemed appropriate by the voters of the jurisdiction?
In other words, is there no common ground for making an election "fair?"
Posted by Wilson Rivers at December 8, 2007 01:34 PMterry-
so, if you had been able to list your 2nd, 3rd, etc. choices, you wouldn't have listed anyone?
Posted by Turkana at December 8, 2007 03:11 PMEd Jew won with IRV in San Francisco, but an Asian Law Caucus exit poll showed that he was far and away the most popular Asian candidate in a district that had an Asian American majority. Shouldn't he have won under those circumstances?
Fact is, the voting system can't always lead to the people you like winning -- but IRV elects the candidate with majority support that day of voting.
Posted by Douglas at December 9, 2007 09:14 PM