At 01:23 PM 1/2/2009, Terry Bouricius wrote:
Dave makes a good point, that I may have emulated Abd in verbosity in
making my point. Here it is in a nutshell:
Since the two-round runoff election system widely used in the U.S. that
involves counting votes in two rounds is said to always elect a "majority
winner," meaning a majority of votes from those voters who chose to
express a preference between the two candidates who made it into the final
runoff, then by the identical logic, an IRV winner is also a "majority
winner" who ALSO has a majority of votes from those voters who chose to
express a preference between the two candidates who made it into the final
runoff.
In other words, if we don't consider the runoff election to be a
single election, if we neglect that this election can and does result
in plurality winners (Long Beach, CA, recently), then a narrow claim,
possibly misleading, made about this situation can be applied by
analogy. However, Robert's Rules of Order specifically rejects this,
and notes that the STV method "deprives" the voters of the
opportunity to base their votes in the next election on the results
of the previous one.
What Bouricius is doing is to create an elaborate analogy; under this
analogy, the use of the word "majority" is then, presumably,
justified. However, the argument about "majority" is being used in a
context where the word has a very clear meaning. It means more than
half of the legal votes cast, i.e., the legal ballots contain a vote
for the winner, never mind what rank -- as long as it isn't bottom,
which is usually unexpressed.
Now, if I were selling you something, and I were accused of consumer
fraud in the sale, and I claimed an analogy like this, it would not
be accepted as a defense, because the word, in context, had a
specific and clear meaning, and that meaning was the foundation of
the desirability of runoff voting. Voters want that rule.
Runoff voting *seeks* a majority, and some forms guarantee it, in the
second round, by considering all other votes to be illegal. However,
in the runoff, voters make the specific decision to vote in that
election or not. In the runoff, an abstention is specific and clear.
Further, the electorate in a runoff is a different electorate, it is
not the same voters. The primary merely controlled the nomination process.
Come FairVote with a promise that a "majority" can be obtained
without a runoff! And, in fact, one who doesn't realize the
implications of truncation, nor who realizes how *common* it is, will
think, why, of course it will do this! A true majority. However, the
reality is that IRV doesn't do this, in practice. Most elections
where a majority is not found in the primary, there is no majority
found with the vote transfers -- in nonpartisan elections.
The analogy is interesting, but it isn't what the voters were told!
Words were used that would reasonably be expected to lead them in a
certain direction, and the analogy is the typical deniability
asserted by spin doctors when they get caught.
"I didn't have sex with that woman." (Uh, what I did isn't
considered, by some people, to be "sex.") Did that argument stand? It
was actually stronger for him than the argument is here, he was under
considerable pressure, and, as a lawyer himself, may not have had an
obligation to parse the words more carefully, it would have been the
obligation of the examining attorney to make sure meanings were
clear. But I think he was found to have perjured himself.
I'm claiming that, coming from FairVote, the deception was
*intentional*. That there is an alternate interpretation -- a
far-fetched one -- doesn't change that. The alternate interpreation
is not what was communicated by the words, and I know this to be the
case by the degree of resistance FairVote activists, including Mr.
Bouricius, exerted against clarification.
Both methods define a majority by excluding from the basis for
calculating the majority threshold all of the voters who may have voted
for a candidate in the first round but abstain (do not indicate any
preference) in the final round. In sum...If two round runoffs result in
"majority winners" so does IRV.
This argument, of course, depends on, among other things, the ability
to fully rank the candidates, which wasn't even present in nearly all
these implementations. The voters may not have been able to sincerely
rank candidates *and* vote in that "last round."
But the runoff election in TTR is actually a separate election,
merely with a special nomination rule. That's why the first round is
called a "primary." There are various such primary methods.....
We don't compare the votes in the primary with those in the runoff
because they may be a quite different set of voters. Bouricius knows
that whenever a motion fails, or an election fails, in deliberative
process, the vote becomes moot and of no further effect. But,
desiring to avoid a long series of election attempts, TTR was devised
as a major reform, mostly in the last century, I think, to
*encourage* a majority, by only allowing the top two from the primary
a place on the runoff ballot.
But then these two campaign against each other, different voters may
show up. Voters may change their minds and switch sides. It's a new
election. Normally, however, the preference strength between the top
two remaining is weak compared to the overall preference strength
from the primary. Voters who think, "Tweedledum and Tweedledee" may
not bother to vote. Voters who like both equally or roughly so, may
not bother to vote!
We know that when voters care, runoff turnout is high. But that is
all irrelevant to the issue of majority. Runoff rules are of two kinds:
(1) Only votes for the two names on the ballot are legal. This method
of course, guarantees a majority, but I didn't see it described that
way in early descriptions of runoff voting. With this form, a
majority is indeed guaranteed, but it isn't the same voters, and more
voters may participate in the runoff than in the primary, and that
isn't terribly uncommon.
(2) Write-ins are allowed. In this case majority failure is possible,
certainly, though it's uncommon. In this case, describing top two
runoff as a method which "guarantees a majority" would be a bit of
hype, but not greatly so. It's unusual. With IRV, majority failure is *common.*
Majority failure is a sign that the winner hasn't been thoroughly
vetted. It could be a sign of Center Squeeze, or of other election
pathologies. Under Robert's Rules, it is taken as a proof that the
electorate has not made a decision, hence further process is
necessary. That principle doesn't change with public elections,
though it is certainly ignored often enough.
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