I just started trying to wrap my brain around all the ins and outs about voting methods, and I wanted to check two things with my elders (on this subject):
1) As far as I can see, the reason IRV has some strange/unusual results is because it is absolutely critical what order you eliminate candidates. So an election where Voting Bloc 1 has a 13% share of the ballots and Voting Bloc 2 has a 16% share of the ballots can utterly flip around using IRV if VB1 goes up two points and VB2 goes down 2. Because with IRV, the order of elimination is really the first-most deciding factor in who wins. For example, here are three different scenarios: 40% A B D C 25 C B D A 20 D B C A 15 B A C D WINNER: A (the topline means of course that 40% put candidate A first, B second, D third, and C last.) 40% A B D C 25 C B D A 26 D B C A 9 B A C D WINNER: D 40% A B D C 25 C B D A 17 D B C A 18 B A C D WINNER: B A few percent either way on the last line changes *everything*. This seems to be a flaw with IRV, yes? It is "too sensitive" on small changes because they can change the order of elimination. 2) I haven't seen a voting system like this - what are the issues with it? Upsides and downsides? A) Each voter ranks their choices on their ballots, first through last place. B) If one candidate got a majority of 1st place votes, they win. If not, the second place votes are added. If still no majority he third place votes are added, and so on, until one candidate has a majority. Would the above system work? Thanks, very new to all these considerations, still trying to learn the names of the different methods as well as the names and meaning of the different criteria like Condorcet, Later No Harm, etc. -Benn Grant eFix Computer Consulting <mailto:b...@4efix.com> b...@4efix.com 603.283.6601
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