Hi James, and welcome to the list. > >I am convinced of the technical superiority of Condorcet over other >methods.
I agree with you there. But keep in mind that "Condorcet" is not a single voting method but rather refers to any Condorcet-efficient voting method, the variety of which is potentially infinite. Basically, I support the beatpath, ranked pairs, and river methods... but I would like to combine them with a cardinal component, which I won't go into here... > However, the lack of any real world implementations to point >to, and the difficulty of explaining the tie-breaker I prefer not to call majority rule cycles "ties". They are logically very distinct concepts, and calling them ties gives the impression that the method becomes arbitrary when they occur, which is not true. >So I'm down to looking at IRV vs. Approval (Approval being completely >trivial to explain). Okay, but keep in mind that it is possible to do a version of IRV which allows for equal rankings. Does the wording of your ballot initiative make it clear that equal rankings are not allowed? Because if there is an opportunity to do so, I strongly urge you to keep that option open. We have sometimes called this "equal rankings IRV" (ER-IRV), and there are two possible ways to count it. If I rank three candidates as tied for first, then we could give all three candidates 1 point in the first round, or we could give them all 1/3 in the first round, and bring the fraction up to 1/2 and 1 as the other two are eliminated. These are the "whole" and "fractional" versions of ER-IRV. ER-IRV(whole) is more of an IRV-approval "hybrid", and does a better job of reducing the incentive for the compromising-reversal strategy, but ER-IRV(fractional) is probably more acceptable to the general public, and less likely to anger people who are very strict in their definition of "one person, one vote". I'd lean toward saying that ER-IRV(whole) is the better method of the two, but I expect that ER-IRV(fractional) is a safer bet politically. I see no excuse for disallowing equal rankings in IRV, when ER-IRV(fractional) has clear advantages with no drawbacks. The advantage is that it transforms a lot of the compromising-reversal incentive into compromising-compression (changing a strict preference into an equality, rather than reversing it), which will have a less-distorting effect on the election. > >The Center for Voting and Democracy (a group I generally agree with) >has stated its preference for IRV over Approval. There are two >relevant links: Yes, most of us are familiar with CVD. I interned there one summer, actually. > >The most compelling argument against IRV in my mind is the empirical >evidence from Australia. 3rd party candidates are still not viable, >and voters still vote tactically. The requirement to rank all the >candidates also results in some odd side effects (like 'how to vote' >cards, and the horrific 'donkey vote'). Yes. Australia's HOR shows us that IRV can maintain stable govenments, but it does not show us that IRV can help third parties challenge the status quo. > >The most compelling argument against Approval voting from the Science >mag article is the idea that it will result in non-substantive >campaigns where candidates try to come across as totally inoffensive >in order to gain approval from as many voters as possible. > Actually, the most compelling argument against approval is that it fails the mutual majority criterion. (If there is a single majority of the voters who rank every candidate in a set S1 over every candidate outside S1, then the winner should certainly be a member of S1.) This means that a candidate can be the first choice of 55%, 60%, even 99% of the voters, and still lose an approval election. Also, it means that even if a big majority prefers all of the Democrats to all of the Republicans, a Republican can still win. Of course, this is not really a criticism of approval relative to plurality, because plurality also fails the mutual majority criterion, but it is a devastating criticism of approval relative to IRV (which passes the criterion). This failure also has nasty strategic consequences. See the link below. http://fc.antioch.edu/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/voting_methods/survey.htm#approval I'd say that there is no contest between ER-IRV(whole) and approval; the former is clearly superior. I would also tend to say that ER-IRV(fractional) is distinctly better. As for a version of IRV which doesn't permit equal rankings, I don't know. Probably still a bit better, but really, I just think it's stupid not to allow equal rankings, so I'd rather not spend time thinking about it. > >It strikes me that this reform will involve a lot of discussions with >citizens about what "fairness" means in a single-winner election. I suggest that the goal of single-winner voting is generally majority rule. I think that the Condorcet crition (and perhaps generalizations of the Condorcet criterion, such as the minimal dominant set criterion) provide the best operational definition of majority rule. IRV's definition of majority rule is clearly weaker than Condorcet, but a step up from plurality, etc. > my best, James P.S. Feel free to visit my voting methods pages at http://fc.antioch.edu/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/voting.htm ---- Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info