Jan Kok Sent: Monday, March 13, 2006 4:07 AM > Yes, I agree that the election rules affect how people vote. > But, unsophisticated IRV supporters are not aware that there > can be incentives to vote insincerely in IRV elections, or > may believe that IRV and Condorcet will always, or almost > always, choose the same winner. If we can find a > counterexample (even if somewhat flawed because the ballots > were intended to be counted by IRV and not Condorcet), it may > wake up some IRV supporters and get them to at least > question, "If these two methods can get different results, > which method gives the better result?"
The answer to this question, for most electors, will almost certainly be context dependent. Suppose we have a Condorcet winner who is not the IRV winner, because that candidate is placed third in first preference votes but is "everyone's second choice". If that CW is only a little way behind the two front-runners (35%, 34%, 31%), the CW would probably be politically acceptable to most electors. But if that CW has very little first preference support compared to the two front-runners (48%, 47%, 5%), I suspect the CW would not be politically acceptable to most electors. I can see merits in both IRV and Condorcet, but this is a practical aspect of voting reform that very few advocates of Condorcet methods have attempted to address. James Gilmour ---- election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info