Donald in his standard junk style of postings wrote in part- There seems to be a mind set among a few on this list that if there is no majority on the first count then the winner should be the third or lower candidate, the so called `compromise candidate'.
--- D- The ever clueless Donald does not want to disturb his brain cells mind set in political concrete with even the actual (or possible) existance of a *complete* place votes table. Example -- 5 Choices 1 2 3 4 5 A A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 B B1 B2 B3 B4 B5 C C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 D D1 D2 D3 D4 D5 E E1 E2 E3 E4 E5 For example purposes - NO candidate has a first choice majority. There will obviously be 4 losers (assuming only the place votes table math will determine the winner) --- NOT just one. Thus, the second or later choices of 3 (not just 1) first choice losers would determine the winner between the remaining 2. The question is which 3 of the 5 are losers AT THE SAME TIME in order to get a so-called instant runoff between the 2 remaining --- very complex since a divided majority and a divided minority may EACH have 2 or more subparts. Donald and his favorite mind set IRV would ignore most of the data in the table. Another IRV idiot example- 26 AE 25 BE 24 CE 23 DE 1 E 99 With IRV --- E loses. A wins with a mighty 26 of 99 votes E beats each other choice head to head If the votes are deemed to be YES votes, then YES A 26 B 25 C 24 D 23 E 99 (a mere 100 percent of the votes) ---- For more information about this list (subscribe, unsubscribe, FAQ, etc), please see http://www.eskimo.com/~robla/em