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Misc

FD:

Why isn't there a comparison between IRV and FPTP. Surely that is a more valuable comparison?

Thanks for adding the 'truncated' explanation. That makes more sense.

Contrary to the opening sentence, IRV can also be used for multi-member electorates - changed to normally.

That stuff about historical use in BC should be removed. It makes no sense to non-Canadians. This article is about a vote counting method, not Canadian politics.

Sorry I didn't realise this page was here before. I have removed the 'return of the third party spoiler effect' section because it made no sense. I think there is no spoiler effect - where people think there is it is actually failure to compromise. The difference between the two is that with failure to compromise, the candidate that gets unfairly eliminated has fewer primary votes than two other candidates, whereas for the spoiler effect the second candidate based on first rpeferences is unfairly eliminated because of a weaker candidate.

I like the Tenessee example because it is consistent through all the pages on voting systems.

We need to point out explicitly that all the 'relevant' criticisms of IRV also apply to first past the post as it reads like IRV might be worse than first past the post. They only make it 'worse' than condorcet methods.

What is NPOV?

re: condorcet vs IRV, the only advantage of condorcet is that it eliminates failure to compromise. However this never happens in real elections because IRV tends to drive the two major parties toward the political middle gorund anyway. Thus, condorcet methods give you added complexity (the vote counting would be horrendous and would probably need computerised voting) with no real benefit.

end FD

It is disingenuous to say that Condorcet provides "no real benefit" -- failing the participation criterion (which says, basically, that your own vote shouldn't hurt you) is seen by many people as a pretty big deal. Some cases in which IRV would tend to suffer from the Center Squeeze effect are quite plausible. See the French Presidential election of 2002, for example. I'm not sure how to format Misplaced Pages tables, but I'd be happy to write in a few examples in text. Additionally, Condorcet saves tremendously on the complexity of aggregating ballot information from polling stations into a central counting location. IRV ballots either must be transmitted with full ranking information (complexity of N-factorial), or must be counted and recounted, at the polling stations, as individual candidates are eliminated. Condorcet can be transmitted once, using the number of points to each candidate in each one-on-one match (complexity of N-squared). Approval Voting is simpler still, and is considerably less controversial, in terms of its "failure modes". And if you absolutely must have a run-off method, there's an inverted method of IRV (eliminating the candidate with the most "votes against", rather than the candidate with the fewest "votes for") that's equivalent to Condorcet with cycles resolved by by first-choice count. Rmharman 07:31, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Both methods fail the participation criterion. It is possible to hurt your favorite by showing up to vote.

Changes to Example

I'd like to totally change the example in this article. I think it is really complicated and doesn't clarify the simplicity of IRV. I'd like to try something really straight forward instead, like the flash animation | here. Are people supportive of trashing the current example? --Leep4life 20:11, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I also found the "election for the capital of Tennessee" example a bit confusing when I first read it, although I accepted it as useful for people who are willing to trace through it. The MAIN issue in replacement is that a number of single winner methods use the same example for comparison: Plurality voting system Runoff voting Borda count Approval voting Range voting Ranked Pairs (Others?)

I don't believe in "trashing" too easily the work of others. It may be worthy of trashing perhaps, but hard to evaluate when you can't see the bigger picture and value as a comparative example. I suggest the "responsible" choice is o move ALL of the examples to a new article or set of articles. Then the comparative value will be more apparent.

... I took my own advice and created a combined article including this Tennessee example in all the articles that referenced it.

• SEE NEW ARTICLE: Tennessee voting example

I'll probably get in trouble AGAIN since I GROUPED 9 methods by how people are allowed to vote on a ballot (one vote, ranking, rating). Last time I tried this grouping under voting systems and got in an incomprehensible debate over it, having others deny the existence of explicit "one vote" systems. I surrendered and that's where the illogical "Binary" classification came from Voting_system#Binary_voting_methods. I put Approval in the example article above as a Rating system where it BELONGS, not that I'm looking for a new fight - just can't support foolishness.

!!! INCIDENTALLY !!! current referencing Cumulative voting in Voting_system#Rated_voting_methods is absolutely illogical as well. I'm not touching it, but I'll support anyone who wants to move it to Voting_system#Multiple-winner_methods where it belongs.

I copy&pasted quick short summaries for each method within the combined article, and wrote my own summary as needed. I wanted it very brief, and certainly room for improvement.

I'll let this sit a bit before more action. If this new example article is acceptable, references to this example in each article can be mentioned and link/anchored for each main article.

Tom Ruen 02:31, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

I really like the combination article. It looks really good to have it all together, because then you can easily click to any of the different systems on one page. Can we delete the examples from each of the individual articles now? --Leep4life 06:34, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Linking to a separate article is not a good idea. A wikipedia article should explain the topic it's on, not require someone to read another article. Worse, the comparative section is in a dangerously perilous place to being just a page for POV advocacy of particular methods, which we absolutely don't need. If we are making comparisons, they must be directly relevant to the article we're discussing and NPOV. An illustrative example at voting system criteria demonstrating what methods pass and fail a particular criteria with the example might be appropriate, however a separate page full of original research is not. Scott Ritchie 07:05, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Scott, I'm open for suggestions what to do with the content. I sort of think if the content is not appropriate combined, then it's not appropriate divided. I don't have a clear intuitive sense of what is right here. I don't consider made up examples as "Original" research, although this article I wrote DOES qualify much more clearly. IRV - Sample election - favorite season

My judgement is that an example WITHIN a method article ought to illustrate "how it works mechanically" rather than "how it works in regards to voter strategy in nontrivial cases".

In this regard I judge my Season-election example (graphic) alone as the sort of "example" that is valuable. Image:Irvseasoncounting.png I mean the graphic largely alone, not the article. I'm not suggesting this specific graphic be used, ONLY that it represents what I'd be looking for. I want a graphical representation of how IRV can be hand-counted.

SO my vote might be for: (1) Unhappily trash complex example in IRV article(and others?) (2) Substitute a step-wise graphic example that shows how easy it is to count.

Tom Ruen 07:25, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Why not create an example using markup similar to the one in the tables at Single Transferable Vote? Scott Ritchie 11:01, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

I rewrote the first example into a form which (IMHO) is easier to understand, as well as being a more complete description of the voting process. If you disagree, speak up. Happy-melon 15:25, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Removed stuff on STV in Canada

I removed the following, as I don't see how it's relevant to the article on single-winner elections. Perhaps some content should go in History and usage of the Single Transferable Vote or in the relevant articles on the Canadian referendum. Scott Ritchie 09:20, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I can't speak for the BC-STV paragraph, although I did contribute some of the aftermath stuff; the connection between IRV and BC is 1952 and 1953, and that system's abandomment by undemocratic actions on the part of the Premier it selected.....There should be a history of IRV (by whatever name) in BC here; how it came in, what its effects were, and how it was disappeared....Skookum1 09:38, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

BC used single-winner IRV in 1952 and 1953? Well, that's relevant to some extent (as much as any place using IRV is). However multi-winner IRV isn't particularly relevant for this article, as the BC-STV stuff is. Scott Ritchie 10:59, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Multi-winner IRV? Did I say that? There was only one winner and on elimination race for each seat, although it's true many ridings were multiple-member ridings (usually double, sometimes triple - but multi-member ridings were split into three ballots so the elimination process could work see e.g. Vancouver-Point Grey and look for the respective years, and then compare the poll results above and below (1949 and 1956). 1952 and '53 in BC were straightforward elimination ballots - lowest total on each count gets taken out, their second-choice ballots applied to remaining, until someone hits 50%. The BC-STV stuff is not relevant to this article to the same degree IMO, since this article is about IRV, not STV. The following passages were apparently excised from the main page, but the basics of them were already in THIS article before I added clarifying details (as the circumstances of the STV idea and the aftermath of the vote were referred to, but not really explained well).

There's a "neutrality dispute" posted on the other page; is the remaining paragraph about '52-'53 under neutrality dispute? Everything there is factual, and I make an effort to not be partisan; the opinion of the electoral fall-out and Bennett's retrenchment after the second election are standards in history of the era, whether by conservative or liberal columnists.Skookum1 06:26, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

BC-STV Referendum

The British Columbia Citizens Assembly on Electoral Reform met during 2004 and selected STV as the preferred method of voting in British Columbia. This was brought forward in a referendum accompanying the recent provincial election (May 17, 2005), but despite overwhelming support the vote failed the limit required by the legislation mandating the referendum, which had also created the Citizens Assembly, which was three-fifths of the vote, and two-thirds of constituencies. Seventy-seven out of seventy-nine constituencies voted in favour of the proposed BC-STV reforms, but the popular vote missed the 57.69%, missing the required 60% margin margin by a little over two percent. Heavy "no" voting in certain constituences, notably Kamloops where an organized opposition was in place, is credited with tipping the popular vote "against" the proposed system.

Post-Referendum Debate and Aftermath

In the aftermath, loud opposition from the leader of the New Democratic Party, Carole James, dissuaded Premier Gordon Campbell from following a tide of public opinion and media debate which pointed out that he didn't actually need a mandated vote to implement the new electoral system - he could do it by Order-in-Council in the same way that W.A.C. Bennett had abandoned the elimination ballot after the 1952 and 1953 elections which had brought him to power. The NDP favour Mixed-Member Proportional Representation, which entrenches the role of political parties, as opposed to focussing on preferential order of candidates. Earlier referenda in the province had all been on the 50% plus one basis, and it was widely observed that the figure set to pass the referendum was higher than the popular vote for any government in living memory. Campbell has demurred on the issue, and a new referendum is scheduled during the municipal elections of November 2008 that will essentially be a repeat of the original referendum (although the actual wording of the question is yet to be decided); the main difference is that the Electoral Boundaries Commission will formally set the boundaries of the STV districts that would be used in 2009 if the measure passes and there will be funding for both a 'Yes' and 'No' campaign. Logistical problems faced by Elections British Columbia include preparing different districting plans and voters lists, as well as different organizational machineries required by the different systems. It has not been clear if the referendum to select from the options presented by the legislative committee preparing them will be done by first-past-the-post or elimination ballot. It is generally conceded that any new system will likely result in a handful of seats for the Green Party, and will allow other smaller parties a chance at a seat that was impossible before, except in cases of extreme charisma and popularity by an individual candidate. The NDP's preference for MMP is seen as damage control, the lesser evil of the two main options, the other being BC-STV. Minority governments are expected to be common under any new system, partly because of the fractious nature of BC politics.

Electoral Reform in Other Provinces

In several other provinces, including Manitoba, Ontario and Nova Scotia, commissions and public hearings on electoral reform have moved steadily in the direction of proportional voting, although some variations of STV and IRV are being examined and may be implemented, with or without referenda depending on the jurisidiction involved and its politics at the time. It is widely believed that the pressure to address proportional representation or preferential voting at the national level will mount once provincial jurisdictions embrace changes to their electoral systems.

What now?

Well, I've worked through most of this article this evening and changed everything I can think of. What still needs to be done? I suppose We could add some more pictures, but they are unlikely to be of central importance to the topic - they'll be illustrating things like the Fijian parliament building or portraits of the Wade, etc.

Also, does anyone still think the intro is poor? I don't think it needs any more work - I suspect it's been fine for a while, but no-one has thought to change the to-do list!

Happy-melon 20:00, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

While the majority of the recent edits have been beneficial, the following additions are (IMO) distinctly not-NPOV, so have been 'clipped'. I suggest that they not be reinserted until they have been made POV-neutral:

"It can therefore be argued that Conderecet takes how much to people dislike a candidate into account as well as how much people like the candidate, while IRV completely ignores how much people dislike the candidate. Therefore, Conderect or Approval systems would produce an elecotorate that is happier with the result."

"Any system that does not increase the amount of voting power because there are more candidates is vulnerable to vote-splitting. IRV does not solve this, it merely transferes the votes of with the same amount of power per a voter, therefore, it will likely lead to two party domination and results rarely different from plurality, just more difficult to compile. Condercet and Approval increase the amount of power per a voter based on the amount of candidates, therefore they are invulnerable to vote-splitting. Borda increases it by too much, therefore it is advantageous to a faction to run as many people as possible."

"Nonetheless, IRV stands out as failing many major criteria that are possible to satisfy simultaneously."

-Happy-melon 17:56, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

More changes to examples

Happy-melon,

First of all thanks for getting involved in the article (and in Misplaced Pages if you're new). You wrote:

I rewrote the first example into a form which (IMHO) is easier to understand, as well as being a more complete description of the voting process. If you disagree, speak up.

Clearly the two examples that were there before your changes to Example I were inadequate, but I still don't think we have it quite right so I've now made further changes, by simplifying Example I and completely replacing Example II. I've done this because I think it's best to have a very, very simple first example, followed by a more complicated second example that gives a more complete description. In the process I've done away with the Tennesse example. There have already been concerns expressed about it on this page and I agree with them. Although there are advantages in using a single example across various voting system articles I think the Tennesse example gives an inadequate account of IRV and really seems to have been designed as a way of showing certain differences between IRV and Condorcet more than anything else.

I'd like to keep Example I very simple so that readers can get a quick grasp of the basic principle, as well as because it's reused in the "majoritarianism and consensus" section and that section becomes pretty incomprehensible unless a very simple example is used. However I agree that at least one of the examples needs to be more comprehensive. In particular in the new Example II I've tried to show:

1. What happens when voters with the same first preference have different lower preferences
2. How IRV operates across a few rounds rather than just two
3. The procedure for transfering a vote to the next 'live' preference when other preferences have already been eliminated

However while doing this I've tried to keep Example II relatively simple. In particular to illustrate (1) I don't think it's necessary to have examples of every single possible combination of preferences on a ballot paper. I think one example of split lower preferences is sufficient to explain the process without losing the reader. Another minor alteration is I've changed the format of the tables back to putting the number of voters for each ballot paper at the top rather than the bottom. This is the format used on other preferential system articles and IMHO it's much clearer. Others may disagree though.

Anyway if the two examples in the article still aren't satisfactory lets discuss the matter further.

Iota 18:52, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

More NPOVing

I've just removed the following text:

IRV also has the problem that it will, undoubtedly, lead to a two-party system. Very rarely are the results changed from the plurality winner (under 5% of the time in Australia), and it is not known how much of this is due to the non-monotonic properties of IRV. Australia's house of representatives, which uses IRV, only has 3 members who are not part of the two-party structure. This is certainly more than the US, which has 1, but definitely not a multi-party system. IRV suffers from the same vote-splitting effects of plurality; they are merely dampened. This is because IRV does not solve the main problem that causes vote-splitting and the two-party system under plurality: the voter has 1 vote for 2 candidates, and the same amount of power to decide between 10. IRV merely transfers this vote, and it is still very, very simialar to the plurality system in affect. Obviously this is going to lead to strategic two-party voting.

This was in the wrong section, is not NPOV, and, in fact, just reproduces information already given in various parts of the article. The essential point, that in Australia IRV produces a two party system very similar to plurality, I've added to the "effect on parties and candidates section". The claim that the results differ by "under 5%" is interesting. Can anyone provide a source though?

Iota 01:47, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Well done on finding the how-to-vote card, Iota, and some great contributions. I prefer the new examples both to the originals and to my modifications. Nice job!

Singular they

Those editors who seem to really care what we use for pronouns should check the Misplaced Pages article on Singular they. Since we are an encyclopedia, we should try to use what is accepted as formal grammar for written usage, and not informal speech. At any rate, note that according to that article the usage of "their" when a person is of indeterminate gender seems to be the least preferred usage of all.

There is also a meta on the whole topic that may or may not interest you.

One more note would be that in the context it is used in this article, either gender specific pronoun would be acceptable, since it is an example. What I've seen to be more common than using "singular they", is to randomly choose a gender specific pronoun and use it in a generic way. Peyna 23:46, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing those links to our attention, Peyna. I am not particularly bothered between "her", "his" or "their", but I intensely dislike the use of "his or her". While I'm not calling a formal vote, I encourage other editors to make their views known. While I am, as I say, more in favour of one of the gender-specific pronouns, I feel that the most important thing is to be consistent.

Consider also that in the equivalent section of single transferable vote (a featured article which has been listed on the main page), the pronoun "her" is used. Happy-melon 19:41, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Corporate Governance & Civil Society

If there are any examples of Instant runoff voting systems from the corporate world then it would be great to see them included. For instance in the election of company board members. Also examples from civil society (eg trade unions, positions in religious bodies etc) would be of interest. Terjepetersen 13:19, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

elimination in IRV

I see from reading this article that the candidate with the lowest first preference votes is eliminated immediately, not given the chance to gather second and third preference votes.

What is a system where no-one is eliminated, and keep gathering votes until someone has an overall majority? So that in example 1, Brian would collect the 42 second preference votes from Catherine and 39 from Andrew? BillMasen 18:30, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

——

I think what you're asking for makes some sense -- Bob, Carol, Ted & Alice all run and Ted has a majority of second choice votes but is the lowest first choice vote getter. The problem is, everyone's already decided that Ted isn't their highest preference and it seems unfair to the voters who picked other candidates with higher prefernces to make them "throw away" their higher preference choices and make them accept their lower choices as their first preference. Plus, I think instant runoff is about allowing people to take a risk on third party candidates without feeling like they're throwing away their votes.

________________

I don't exactly mean them throwing away their first preference choices. I mean that if a candidate fails to get a majority of first preference votes, every candidate gets the first pref PLUS their second pref votes, and then third pref and so on until someone has a majority.

Is this a voting system which exists?

BillMasen 15:32, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

BillMasen: I believe you're describing Bucklin voting. Rmharman 18:55, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

blog references?

Hmmmmm... I'm curious by the inclusion of a blog entry in the references. If random blogs are "sources", I'm sure you can find ennumerable such sources. How does Misplaced Pages judge validity of such web sources?

It would seem to me that if something would be considered original research to be included in Misplaced Pages, then linking to a blog or individual website ought to fit in the same category. So the only reason for linking to an external source is if it is a web copy of a published resource (or if it is a summary of such a resource).

Thoughts anyone? I accept it is nearly hopeless, except brutally stripping out probably 90% of the external links found. Tom Ruen 04:15, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Practical implications

The following quote is in this section:

"If counting takes place in several places for a single IRV election (as in Australia), these counting centres must be connected by a securely authenticated channel (historically, in Australia, the telegraph was used) to inform them which candidate has come last and should be dropped."

This isn't how the count works in practice in Australia. The final count (including the official preference flows) for each electorate is done in one place a few days after election night when all the absentee and postal votes have had a chance to arrive. On election night, individual counts are conducted in each polling place with a first-preference count done first, followed by a two-candidate-preferred count, where each polling place distributes preferences to the two candidates the divisional returning officer determines will be the likely two final candidates. If these aren't the two final candidates, it just means the figures on the night for that electorate are a bit dodgy and they will be rectified over the following days. But there is no liaison between counting centres in Australia on election night to determine which candidates are to be excluded. Crico 01:45, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

See p17-18 of the AEC's Scrutineer's handbook for an official description of what I was just talking about Crico 02:06, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

strike approval plug

I took out thes sentences under (Practical implications)

For these reasons some electoral reformers argue that it is simpler to change from plurality to approval voting than to a preferential system, although that theory has not been borne out in practice: instant runoff voting has been far more successful at winning adoptions both in public elections in American states and cities and in student eledctions at universities.

I judged this as a biased statement intended to promote approval rather than to explain IRV. Tom Ruen 05:17, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I pulled this too, seemed irrelevent since we're already talking about counting by computer! Tom Ruen

For example the more sophisticated versions of Condorcet's method are practical for large elections only if counting is done by computer.

undocumented paragraph removed here

Another alternative that has been called "Progressive Advancement" is for the candidate with the most first preferences to advance to the next round of voting. The ballots are then recounted and the next remaining candidate with the most first preferences advances to the next round of voting. This process continues until all candidates but one have advanced to the next round, at which point the last unadvanced candidate is eliminated. The counting then resumes to determine if there is a winner based on a majority of first preferences. If not, another round of progressive advancement occurs until either a winner is found, or until all candidates except one have been eliminated.

Tom Ruen 23:13, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Removed text restored here

I should have been more careful before I started, but an anonymous user (139.62.107.233) took out four significant sections completely, so I went back and pasted the below, if anyone wants to decide what to do. Tom Ruen 05:45, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Similar systems

Runoff-voting

The term instant-runoff voting is derived from the name of a simpler class of voting systems called runoff voting. In runoff voting voters do not rank candidates in order of preference on a single ballot. Instead a similar effect is achieved by using multiple rounds of voting, often held on different days. The simplest form of runoff voting is the two-round system, where voters vote for only one candidate but, if no candidate receives an overall majority of votes, another round of voting is held from which all but the two candidates with most votes are excluded.

Runoff voting differs from IRV in a number of ways. The two-round system can produce different results due to the fact that it uses a different rule for eliminations, excluding all but two candidates after just one round, rather than gradually eliminating candidates over a series of rounds. However all forms of runoff voting differ from IRV in that voters can change their preferences as they go along, using the results of each round to influence their decision. This is not possible in IRV, as participants vote only once, and this prohibits certain forms of tactical voting that can be prevalent in 'standard' runoff voting.

A closer system to IRV is the exhaustive ballot. In this system only one candidate is eliminated after each round, and many rounds of voting are used, rather than just two. Because holding many rounds of voting on separate days is generally expensive, the exhaustive ballot is not used for large-scale public elections. Instant-runoff voting is so named because it achieves a similar effect to runoff voting but it is necessary for voters to vote only once. The result can be found 'instantly' rather than after several separate votes.

Contingent vote

The contingent vote is the same as IRV except that all but the two candidates with most votes are eliminated after the first round; the count therefore has only two rounds. This differs from the 'two round' runoff voting system described above in that only one ballot is conducted. The two rounds therefore both take place after voting has finished. Two particular variants of the contingent vote differ from IRV in a further way. Under the forms of the contingent vote used in England and Sri Lanka voters are not permitted to rank all of the candidates, but only a maximum number. Under the variant used in England, called the supplementary vote, voters are permitted to express only a first and a second preference. Under the Sri Lankan form of the contingent vote voters are permitted to rank only three candidates. The supplementary vote is used for mayoral elections, while the Sri Lankan contingent vote is used to elect the President.

While superficially similar to IRV, these systems can produce different results. If, as can occur under all forms of the contingent vote, more than one candidate is excluded after the first count, a candidate might be eliminated who under IRV would have gone on to win the election. If voters are restricted to a maximum number of preferences then it is easier for their vote to become exhausted. This encourages voters to vote tactically, by giving at least one of their limited preferences to a candidate who is likely to win.

Tactical voting and strategic nomination

Main article: Tactical manipulation of instant-runoff voting

Instant-runoff voting is intended to reduce the potential for tactical voting by eliminating 'wasted' votes. Under the plurality (or first past the post) system voters are encouraged to vote tactically by voting for only one of the two leading candidates, because a vote for any other candidate is unlikely to affect the result. Under IRV this tactic, known as 'compromising', is sometimes unnecessary because, even if the voter's first choice is unlikely to be elected, her vote has the opportunity of being transferred to her second or subsequent choices, who may be more successful. However the tactic of compromising can still be used in IRV elections, as can another tactic called 'push over'. IRV is immune to 'burying', which is possible under some other preferential systems.

IRV election can also be influenced by strategic nomination; this is where candidates and political factions attempt to influence the result of an election by either nominating extra candidates or withdrawing a candidate who would otherwise have stood. IRV is vulnerable to strategic nomination for the same reasons that it is open to the voting tactic of 'compromising'. This is because a candidate who knows they are unlikely to win can bring about the election of a more desirable compromise candidate by withdrawing from the race, or by not standing in the first place. By withdrawing candidates a political faction can avoid the 'spoiler effect', whereby a new candidate 'splits the vote' of its supporters. However, the spoiler effect is less of a problem in IRV than under the plurality system because there are opportunities for 'split votes' to be concentrated on one of the candidates as the rounds progress, whereas under the plurality system votes cast for a losing candidate are simply lost.

Effect on parties and candidates

Like other preferential voting systems, IRV encourages candidates to appeal to a broad cross-section of voters in order to garner lower preferences. However this characteristic may be diminished by the fact that lower preferences have less influence on the final result under IRV than under some other preferential systems.

IRV is an election method designed for single-seat constituencies. Therefore, like other single-seat methods, if used to elect a council or legislature it will not produce proportional representation (PR). This means that it is likely to lead to the representation of a small number of larger parties in an assembly, rather than a proliferation of small parties. Under a parliamentary system it is more likely to produce single-party governments than PR systems, which tend to produce coalition governments. While IRV is designed to ensure that each candidate elected is supported by a majority of those in her constituency, if used to elect an assembly it does not ensure this result on a national level. As in other non-PR systems the party or coalition which wins a majority of seats will often not have the support of an overall majority of voters across the nation. IRV is also one of many voting systems that is subject to vote-splitting, which almost always results in a two-party structure. In Australia, the only nation besides Fiji to use IRV for the election of legislative bodies, IRV produces results very similar to those produced by the plurality system. This has resulted in a two party system similar to those found in many countries that use plurality. If the first preferences of Australian voters were counted on a First Past the Post basis, their elections would produce the same victors about 94% of the time.

Where preferential voting is used for the election of an assembly or council, parties and candidates often advise their supporters on how to use their lower preferences. As noted above, in Australia parties even issue 'how-to-vote' cards to the electorate before polling day. These kinds of recommendations can increase the influence of party leaderships and lead to a form of pre-election bargaining, in which smaller parties bid to have key planks of their platforms included in those of the major parties by means of 'preference deals'.

Condorcet vs. IRV

The following sentence (from Majoritarianism and Consensus) doesn't make much sense:

"In fact, when IRV elects a candidate other than the Condorcet winner it will always be that the majority of voters prefer the Condorcet winner to the IRV winner (the only system that always elects the Condorcet winner is Condorcet's method)."

First of all, the main part of the sentence seems to be a tautology with no information about IRV, since by definition, the Condorcet winner is preferred by a majority of voters over any given opponent. In other words, the sentence would be true if IRV was replaced with anything.

Second of all, there is no method called "Condorcet's method". Any method satisfying the condorcet criterion is a Condorcet method, but there are several different ones, so it doesn't make sense to say that only Condorcet's method always elects the Condorcet winner (since this implies that there is only one voting system that elects the Condorcet winner). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 12.72.242.244 (talk) 00:15, 7 December 2006 (UTC).

Problems

A couple of issues with this article.

1. There is frequent mention of something called "runoff voting", but there is neither an explanation of what it is nor a link to a page that explains it.
2. The example section refers to a previous example that doesn't exist

Hope this helps. JulesH 19:34, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I linked refernces to Two-round system. Tom Ruen 22:10, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree the example back references makes no sense. Article history needs looking into to sort it out. Tom Ruen 22:13, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Tie breaking rule

I removed this by an anonymous edit:

Eliminating all other candidates and seeing who would win in a pairwise comparisson, and the candidate that loses the pairwise comparrison is eliminated.

Bad spelling, and unclear procedure but seems to imply a Condorect-style elimination on the bottom which would be unacceptable in IRV with keeping only one active vote at a time. Tom Ruen 23:38, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

This page is now protected

This page is hereby protected due to edit warring. Please discuss the problem in the below section and contact me here when the issue is resolved. --Deskana (talk) (review me please) 23:33, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

"Ask 10 Questions" put a series of negative information in this article without discussion. These items reflect political bias and seem to come directly from someone associated with http://www.ncvoter.net/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.75.8.161 (talk) 02:11, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Were my edits (ask10questions) removed by an anonymous user or by someone from Misplaced Pages?

It seems odd that opposition is listed as a category, but any opposition reports or papers that I have added to that section have been deleted.

The reason given for removing my edits was listed as "items reflect political bias", but there is nothing political in the report by CALPERS, by Dr. Rebecca Mercuri, By Chuck Herrin IT Certification specialist or the other edits I added.

I lead a non partisan 100% volunteer grassroots organization that does not accept or solicit donations.

All opposition I have added to the entry answers some valid concerns of how IRV affects voters and how it affects the election process - i.e counting of votes. Other reports include why some organizations or cities turned IRV down.

Without these contributions, the bulk of the Misplaced Pages entry is composed by a non profit organization called Fair Vote, and links all trace back to that organization. This organization's main agenda is to promote Instant Runoff Voting. Citizen advocates tell me that they want to hear more than just Fair Vote's talking points.

Please do not remove edits which are based on experts or valid reports and or news articles.

There is no political agenda in any of these articles/reports.

Thank you. Ask10questions 18:51, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Article badly needs a criticism section

Article badly needs a Criticism section with a concentrated list of objections to IRV. Tempshill 05:07, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

RESPONSE: - There are plenty of such objections provided in the article and lots of links to them. This isn't designed for politics; it's for informaiton. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.75.8.161 (talk) 22:53, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

RESPONSE: - I added articles and reports under the "Opposition" section and they were deleted by an anonymous user. The anonymous user incorrectly labled the opposition information as partisan, which is absolutely incorrect. Anyone reading the information can see that it is not partisan in any way. I lead a non partisan 100% grassroots organization that is "unbought and unbossed", i.e we do not solicit or accept donations.

I take pride in using information that can be clearly verified for its source or correctness. --Ask10questions 18:57, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I've got a watch here, but not really looked at the article as a whole in a couple years, after a number of serious (and undiscussed) rewrites. I'll print it tonight and see what I think... Tom Ruen 23:02, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

After a fair but quick read, overall my criticism is the article is MUCH too long, and could use significant pruning (to be discussed later). There's plenty of existing critical statements on IRV already, just not a summary section. I'd more support a "summary of pros and cons" than a "criticism section".

RESPONSE: Hi. You can guess I am new to editing at wikipedia, so thanks for your patience. I see that my input on "Opposition" is 2/3 intact, for which I should be grateful.

My question: Is the goal to educate and inform the public about IRV, to provide information needed before jurisdictions consider adopting it? If so, then why not provide them with the already taxpayer paid for research and reports available? Please at least advise why remove the report by the San Diego Elections Task force?

Here is what I see was removed from Opposition - could you please reconsider?

• Dr. Rebecca MercuriInternationally respected computer scientist and e-voting expert
• Straight Talk On So-Called "Instant Runoff Voting" or Why the "Cure" Is as Deadly as the "Disease"
• Instant Runoff Voting Not Meeting ExpectationsJohn Dunbar for "Beyond Chron"
• The San Diego Elections Task Force Report Decision not to use IRV.
• Tony Bernhard, former Yolo County clerk recorder

Note, there is a diverse source of opposition to IRV, and that in and of itself speaks volumes: Dr. Rebecca Mercuri is recognized around the world as an election integrity expert, and her permission was given to share her opinion on the risks of IRV. Greg Dewar lives and works on campaigns in San Francisco where IRV is used, and John Dunbar also lives in SF and has had his writing published in Beyond Chron. It would be a shame to not share their opinions/evaluation to those seeking information at Misplaced Pages.

Much thanks in advance for your review of of my comments.

--Ask10questions 17:06, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

On your question, I definitely think this article is MORE GENERAL than a debate on whether it is a good method for public elections. Many articles have "sub-articles" created when they get too long, and they can go into more depth.

I DON'T know if Misplaced Pages can reasonably handle public-opinion debates. I mean I hope so, and appreciate seeing different points of view, as long as some effort is made to separate facts from opinions.

I do have to say that the NCVoter website really looks intent on finding all negative statements on IRV, rather than evaluating the context or significance of the statements.

And Misplaced Pages is NOT supposed to "create" new content, but must somehow we must evaluate sources and decide which are worthy to include. That's why I thought a pro-con section would be helpful, a summary of opinions on each side. I try to hope I can be unbiased, and my interest is showing the strengths and weaknesses, in the contect of alternatives available. I understand why strong IRV supporters will reject criticism (and fight inclusion here), when statements are critical of IRV, while not giving this in context along with the weaknesses of alternatives (specifically plurality). Tom Ruen 18:45, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd see something like this below. I don't seen any great point in comparing to anything but plurality and two round system since they are the existing systems used AND no alternatives can be considered one-person, one vote methods to my knowledge. I included the statement "doesn't help third parties win" on both pro and con because it depends on who you are and what you think you want.

I would like if a consensus can be made on what the pros and cons are and then perhaps we can identify and associate the clearest sources that best represent them? Maybe I'm wrong to want to resist comparisons to Borda count or Condorcet method but that's what the Election method page is for.

What do you think? Edit or expand if you can improve. I tried to order the items by my judgment of importance. Tom Ruen 06:50, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

RESPONSE: - I like the basic idea of Pros and Cons. But the section needs a disclaimer because almost every statement in it is disputed by somebody. Something like: "This section lists the main arguments made for IRV by proponents and the main arguments made against it by opponents. Each side disputes the factual basis of some of the points listed under the other side."

I'm certain that proponents of Condorcet, Borda, approval, et. al., will dispute the statement above that they cannot be considered one person, one vote methods. Nonetheless, I agree that multi-way comparisons of lots of methods belong in articles that have that purpose, not in an article about one of the methods.

I added some Pros and Cons of my own, but (for now) kept them separate from the original. Soon we will have to merge the lists so this draft doesn't get unwieldy before it's even published. Bob Richard 16:49, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Good additions - much appreciated... Tom Ruen 21:15, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• The winner is confirmed by majority support, like the two round system, but from a single ballot.
• It can save time for voters, and expenses of a runoff election.
• It encourages sincere voting and reduces the need to vote strategically. (This point is especially hotly contested by some opponents.)
• When compared with the two round system it reduces the cost of campaigning for candidates, thereby functioning as an indirect form of campaign finance reform.
• When compared with the two round system it usually increases voter turnout. It might also increase turnout when compared with plurality, if more voters believe that their votes aren't wasted.
• It may reduce the value of negative campaigning, by encouraging candidates to seek second and third choice votes from supporters of other candidates.
• Like the two round system, it doesn't help third parties win, but it can help third parties gain traction with the electorate by eliminating vote splitting.

Cons:

• It demands more work for voters to rank their choices, as compared to plurality or runoff systems. (Most of this ranking work by voters is wasted since it is never used.)
• Voter don't get a second chance to re-evaluate candidates compared to a real runoff.
• It is more work to count than plurality, requiring changes to voting equipment, and doesn't allow centralized counting from
• Like any runoff process, the winner is not necessarily the Condorcet candidate.
• The additional steps in the counting process make it harder to prevent fraud and insure the integrity of the election. (This point is especially hotly contested by advocates.)
• It could weaken the two-party system.
• Like any runoff process, in rare cases it is possible that adding more first-choice votes for a winning candidate can cause that candidate to lose (fails the monotonicity criterion).
• Like all methods based on rankings, it does not account for the intensity of voter preferences.

RESPONSE: Thanks and again, I am new to editing and hope to follow rules and protocol. It is very important that both sides of IRV be provided, because Fair Vote has a massive campaign launched to spread it in my state and others. Regular citizens need information to make their decisions, and if they only see Fair Vote talking points, they cannot benefit from the real experience of IRV in real life. NCVoter is an unpaid 100% grassroots all volunteer organization, Fair Vote is a 501 c3 paid with IRV as its number 1 agenda. Without wikipedia, it is nearly impossible for people to get more than just the rote talking points. The links I have posted are to independent sites, and posted under "Opposition". Why omit real studies that were paid for by taxpayers, why omit what election officials said?

What is the "Opposition" section for if not for opposing views, reports, analysis? I do not have new links to add beyond those I mentioned had been deleted. Not sure I understand. Thanks for your review. --Ask10questions 23:10, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I have quite a few problems with those:

• "can save time ... and expenses" -- over the long run it's not "can," but "will." When a two-round vote gets a majority on the first vote, there's no savings, but when it doesn't, there is a lot of savings. Amortized, it's always going to be a net win in money, and also in time unless both votes are by mail only.
• "reduces the need to vote strategically. (This point is especially hotly contested by some opponents.)" -- I have read the peer-reviewed math papers on this, and the opponents are just wrong and don't deserve WP:UNDUE weight. See: John J. Bartholdi III, James B. Orlin (1991) "Single transferable vote resists strategic voting," Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 8, p. 341-354, and John R. Chamberlin, "An investigation into the relative manipulability of four voting systems," Behavioral Science, vol. 30, p. 195-203, 1985. Because Condorcet voting can more easily be manipulated by strategic voting (you can always mark whichever of the top-two candidates you do not want to win dead last after people you like even less), Instant Runoff Voting has been shown to produce the Condorcet winner more often in practice than the Condorcet method.
• "It demands more work from voters" -- every time it saves them from having to go back to the polls and vote again in the 2nd round of a runoff it sure doesn't demand more work.
• "doesn't allow centralized counting from" -- from what? IRV can be counted centrally; in fact it is easier to do it centrally than distributed, which requires transmitting much more ballot information than just subtotals.
• "the winner is not necessarily the Condorcet candidate" -- this is true for small scenarios with just a few voters, but as the number of voters increases past 12, monty carlo analysis shows that the chance of producing the Condorcet winner passes 95% and with hundreds of voters it's very close to unity
• "The additional steps in the counting process make it harder to prevent fraud and insure the integrity of the election." -- this is the first I've heard of that one. San Francisco publishes their entire ballot image database and public domain programs can by used to verify one. I would say this would need to have a reliable source in accordance with WP:V before it could be included.
• "It could weaken the two-party system." -- why is that a con?
• "in rare cases ... fails the monotonicity criterion" -- as the number of voters increases into the hundreds, the rareness of the cases is so negligible as to be insignificant. (Sam Merrill, "Making Multicandidate Elections More Democratic," Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1988. (Merrill calls IRV "the Hare method")
• "Like all methods based on rankings, it does not account for the intensity of voter preferences." -- approval and plurality don't either. Range voting is the only form of single-seat election which does this, and it's not used in any democracies of which I am aware. Therefore, I do not believe this should be listed as a "con."

You forgot two major pros:

• It completely eliminates the spoiler effect of plurality voter, making it impossible for a voter to go against their own wishes by not voting for either of the top-two candidates as very often happens in plurality elections.
• Increases voter turnout relative to the 2nd stage of a plurality runoff where turnout is notoriously low. ←Ben 00:14, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

RESPONSE: this was stated as if fact, but without any studies to support: "can save time ... and expenses" -- over the long run it's not "can," but "will." When a two-round vote gets a majority on the first vote, there's no savings, but when it doesn't, there is a lot of savings. Amortized, it's always going to be a net win in money, and also in time unless both votes are by mail only.

Is there a study that proves this? Because with IRV there are additional ballots printed to accommodate the larger ballot, San Francisco had to spend over $1 million to purchase special software, they also spent nearly $2.00 per registered voter in education and they held 700 annual public IRV related voter education events. The education burden also falls on the shoulders of the advocates' groups, shifting some of their resources to a new responsibility. IT may save the city board of elections money, but without a proper accounting the verdict is out on that. It may be that it creates new expenses.

If making such a claim of "it saves money", then please show that. Because it seems that the costs are shifted from the front end to the back end. --Ask10questions 02:39, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

If I'm not mistaken, I believe the second phase of a plurality runoff usually cost San Francisco around $14 million, and they almost always had them because a lot of people seem to run there. On top of that, turnout for the 2nd part was sometimes under 20%. I'll get some cites; I know someone in SF who has a mountain of data on this. ←Ben 03:33, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Here we go: "A citywide runoff for mayor, district attorney, etc generally cost in the $3-5 million range. In even years, 2000 and 2002, there were runoffs only in certain supervisor districts. Those runoffs cost less than a citywide election."

I was way high, but it's still very much more than $1 million for ballots. Here are the stats for declining turnout in SF. I know you're not going to like the source, but I don't think they are likely to have lied about that since the numbers are published by the SF Clerk's office. ←Ben 16:05, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi Ben! A good job on moving/editting pro/con sections into the article, better than I could do, and I was feeling stressed since I started it! Expect there'll be more opinions, and I'll think more too in the coming days as I can, including the overall structure of the article. Tom Ruen 17:17, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure how it can be incorporated into the article, but there is a site that has graphical examples of voting results under Plurality, Approval, Borda, Condorcet, and IRV. It's at http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/ and it clearly shows how IRV can squeeze out centrists, as well as its bizarrely nonmonotonic behavior. Snarfangel 19:39, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

It's a pretty display, but an individual's website isn't really a source that can be use on Misplaced Pages. My first iterpretation of the graphs is that plurality looks best for being simple, and all runoffs should be avoided because of nonmonotonic effects. I'm sort of thinking that wasn't the intent of the display. Tom Ruen 20:10, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

There are a few other problems with it: The voters preferences are based on two continuous domains, there is no representation of two-round runoffs, and there is no indication of how the candidate positions were selected. Much worse, all of the voters are voting honestly when in some systems there is an easy and highly advantageous means of tactical voting. The author is the same approval voting activist Ka-Ping Yee whose leaflet I critique below, and there is a reason he ignores tactical voting. Let's stick to peer-reviewed sources. ←Ben 21:50, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

"reduces the need to vote strategically. (This point is especially hotly contested by some opponents.)" -- I have read the peer-reviewed math papers on this, and the opponents are just wrong and don't deserve WP:UNDUE weight. See: John J. Bartholdi III, James B. Orlin (1991) "Single transferable vote resists strategic voting," Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 8, p. 341-354, and John R. Chamberlin, "An investigation into the relative manipulability of four voting systems," Behavioral Science, vol. 30, p. 195-203, 1985. Because Condorcet voting can more easily be manipulated by strategic voting (you can always mark whichever of the top-two candidates you do not want to win dead last after people you like even less), Instant Runoff Voting has been shown to produce the Condorcet winner more often in practice than the Condorcet method.

This characterization of strategy under Condorcet is too broad. There are plenty of Condorcet methods where "burial" strategy is too risky to rely on. I do not know which Condorcet method Chamberlin investigated however.

What Bartholdi writes about isn't very similar to what Condorcet and Approval advocates complain about regarding IRV. They are likely to criticize that if you know your favorite candidate isn't a frontrunner, under IRV it is more dangerous to rank that candidate sincerely than under (some) Condorcet methods or Approval. In my opinion this is the greatest argument in favor of Approval.

Personally I criticize that, at least when voters are allowed to truncate, IRV can ignore the opinion of a majority of all voters, even when there is only one such opinion. For example: 49% bullet vote for A; 24% bullet vote for B; 27% rank C first and B second. IRV will elect A, even though 51% of the voters prefer B, and A has no comparable claim.

Condorcet advocates would ask you to demonstrate that IRV "has been shown to produce the Condorcet winner more often in practice" than the "Condorcet method" as you put it. They would also be (as I am) completely astonished by your claim that IRV "completely eliminates the spoiler effect of plurality voter, making it impossible for a voter to go against their own wishes by not voting for either of the top-two candidates."

I realize this won't go in the article just because I said it, but you may as well understand the opposing side for your own benefit. KVenzke 02:33, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I guess I must be similarly astonished that there is a form of Condorcet where burial is "risky." Often one of the missing elements in the discussion of different systems' drawbacks is the quantification of how often the various example situations would occur. Your example is a contrived corner case which nearly impossible to occur in practice for more than a dozen voters. I believe you know full well that the number of choices IRV voters rank in practice is not tightly correlated to their preferences, and so while your example using such an absurd set of ballot papers is technically correct, it is worse than wrong because it is dishonest. By "in practice" I mean when people are voting strategically, which is easy with approval (vote only for those who you prefer to the most popular candidate) and very difficult under IRV. In the real world of hundreds or more voters, IRV will never present a situation where a voter will be going against their wishes by making a third party long-shot candidate their first choice, and sincerely voting their second choice. ←Ben 13:58, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Regarding Condorcet: When burial strategy is useful to elect candidate A, it's because A is pairwise defeated by some candidate B (who would win the election), but burying B under a non-contender C creates a cycle which is resolved, by whatever logic, in favor of A. When both A and B supporters do this to each other's candidates, then the winner will typically be some candidate that nobody likes, such as C. In order to make this even more risky, you simply design the method so that unilateral buriers are already likely to cause C to win the cycle resolution, no matter what anybody else does.

Anyway, I would still like to know what Condorcet method Chamberlin examined back in 1985.

Regarding my example, there is once again no reason to allege dishonesty. The fact that IRV can behave this way at all is the criticism. However, I don't understand what you mean by "the number of choices IRV voters rank in practice is not tightly correlated to their preferences."

Also, I don't understand why you have deleted the "con" arguments about IRV regarding its effect or lack of effect on the two-party system. This section only purports to describe arguments that are used. Therefore it is only necessary that it be verifiable that those arguments are used, not that those arguments are accurate. There is no reason not to let both arguments stand in this section. KVenzke 15:45, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

There are a few other problems with it: The voters preferences are based on two continuous domains, there is no representation of two-round runoffs, and there is no indication of how the candidate positions were selected.

I find these criticisms unfair. If Ka-Ping Yee wishes to make arguments against IRV, how can you blame him for selecting the scenarios useful in making the argument? I also don't see what the problem is with not representing two-round runoffs. In the three-candidate case this is theoretically identical to IRV.

Much worse, all of the voters are voting honestly when in some systems there is an easy and highly advantageous means of tactical voting. The author is the same approval voting activist Ka-Ping Yee whose leaflet I critique below, and there is a reason he ignores tactical voting.

It seems totally unnecessary to suggest bad faith on the part of Ka-Ping Yee.

After seeing his diagrams some months ago, I made my own. The main thing I changed was that instead of using randomness to determine the Approval votes (which causes Approval to agree with Condorcet, along with sincere Range voting), I implemented standard "zero-information" Approval strategy, which is to approve every candidate who is better (i.e. closer) than average.

With that implementation, it is generally the case that sincere Condorcet and sincere Range produce a Voronoi diagram. That is to say, the preferred candidate of the median voter is always elected. Sincere IRV and sincere FPP in general suffer from center-squeeze: The centermost of several candidates is under-selected, even when the median voter is exactly there. Approval with zero-info strategy suffers from the reverse phenomenon: The centermost of several candidates is over-selected, even when the median voter prefers one of the flanks.

To find better strategies for any of these methods, you have to assume that there is some knowledge about other voters' likely preferences. KVenzke 03:28, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

If someone wants to make arguments against businessmen, how can you blame them for selecting Ken Lay as an example? I suppose you can't blame them, but you can sure as well call foul for an unrepresentative sample. I am not claiming bad faith, just pointing out objective flaws and past interests. It is for the reader to decide whether there is a conflict.

I would like to see your diagrams. Again, the optimum approval strategy is to vote for only those candidates whom one prefers to the most popular candidate. Since real-world voters often have access to polls, assuming they know about the front-runner is not unreasonable; you might want to try that strategy and see what happens.

Also, I suspect you were looking at two dimensional result maps. When you increase the number of issue dimensions, the non-monotonicity regions become exponentially smaller in proportion. Suppose the non-monotonicity region has a width (average diameter) of 1 out of a range of 10. For one issue dimension, it takes 10% of the whole region, for two issues it's 1%, for three it's 0.1%, etc. The real world has candidates who take positions on dozens of issues, not just two. ←Ben 14:19, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

The optimum approval strategy is to vote for every candidate who is "better than expectation." That is, everyone who is better than the average "goodness" of all candidates, weighted by the expected likelihood of that candidate being in a crucial tie. The strategy you state is quite bizarre since, if all voters have the same information and use this strategy, the "most popular" candidate will receive no votes.

When there is no available information about popularity then voters can do nothing but approve candidates who are better than average.

I did implement some simulations of information, and the result is that Approval's problem is (to varying extents) alleviated so that its plots look more like a Voronoi diagram.

I did not investigate monotonicity issues, so I don't care to talk about that. I was only interested in the center squeeze effect and its opposite, which seems much more important to me.

That said, in the real world there are likely to be about two major candidates competing for a given seat. I think that's practical reality. In that case it doesn't matter how many dimensions really exist, since the line connecting the frontrunners defines a one-dimensional spectrum. KVenzke 15:45, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Here are some diagrams. I can't stand by all of them (it's been too long and I probably had to make revisions), but you can at least see the general pattern I was talking about. KVenzke 15:56, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

The two-party system argument is most often used against IRV. That is, there are people who believe that the two-party system is *good*. It should not be surprising! When the Ann Arbor IRV law was rescinded by initiative, that it allegedly weakened the two-party system was indeed one of the arguments. Again, the argument that IRV will not weaken the two-party system, that, to the contrary, it will strengthen is likewise a con argument, you can find this on the rangevoting.org web site, with evidence, i.e., the fact that countries using STV for single-winner (IRV) all have strong two-party systems is considered strong evidence for this. Obviously, it is not the same people making the argument! And, then again, the pro-IRV people argue that IRV will help third parties, but I've never seen them frame this as "It will weaken the two-party system." The Pro and Con section should eventually refer to all major pro and con arguments regarding IRV, with citations of places where these arguments are actually used (and, preferably, supported with evidence). Generally, at this point, I am leaving in arguments if I've seen them, or if they seem reasonably cogent, not patently and blatantly false, and I've been doing a lot of reading and writing in this area recently. Ultimately, it should all be substantiated, or taken out. Further, at the moment, I'm not trying to get it perfect, just substantially correct and NPOV. Which explains why I left in the edit of BenB4 that extended and made symmetrical the 2-party system argument, even though he called it "stupid." Close enough for now. Abd 02:48, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I also originally put this two-party system argument on both sides, also hearing it on both sides, those who prefer plurality, and those who think IRV doesn't go far enough. Tom Ruen 02:55, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

If there's a statement which is used along with its opposite as both advantages and drawbacks, then why even mention them at all? Beyond the fact that it's unsourced, it's tautological. ←Ben 05:26, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

It seems that BenB4 does not understand the issue. He has confused a list of Pro and Con arguments with a list of *actual* characteristics of the method. A list of Pro and Con arguments, properly, presents and summarizes arguments made by various actors involved. It is framed. Yes, I wrote elsewhere, it should be sourced. But the remedy is not removing the material, because this is an example where the testimony of an editor is adequate. Preferably, Pro and Con arguments should be presented in such a way that those who actually advance the arguments would actually say, "Yes, that is what we argue." Because there is no single official Pro-IRV entity and no similar entity on the other side, it is not only quite possible that contradictory arguments exist, and this one is an actual example. IRV advocates actually argue that IRV will help third parties. And some anti-IRV advocates have argued that, yes, it does, and this is a bad thing. Thus "damages the two party system" is an argument made on both sides, Pro and Con. Likewise, that IRV does *not* damage the two-party system is an argument made by some experts, indeed. And there is strong evidence for this in countries which use STV single-winner, all of them are strong two-party systems. Am I going to put this in the article as a fact? Not without providing sources! Unfortunately, most people who care enough about the topic to collect the information have, themselves, come to conclusions, and thus are easily labelled as biased sources. We should clearly understand that FairVote is not an unbiased source, they have no interest in public education about the *realities* of voting methods, they have a specific political agenda, worked out more than ten years ago, and promoting IRV is a *tactic* in bringing that agenda to fruition. The actual agenda is not relevant here; the point is that they clearly tailor everything they do toward advocacy. As an example, the Misplaced Pages article on Bucklin Voting is largely constructed from FairVote-provided material, which has been salted with comments and conclusions favoring their positions. Is Bucklin closer to IRV or to Approval? It *is* an Instant Runoff system! When it comes to discussing Approval, FairVote will claim that Approval hasn't been used in the U.S. But when it comes to discussing Bucklin, and the fact that Bucklin was ruled unconstitutional in Minnesota (a poor decision, by the way), they claim that Bucklin is Approval and that the fact that Bucklin collapses ranks in an Approval fashion rather than a vote-dropping fashion was responsible for the ruling. Both claims are, of course, false. Approval has been used in the U.S., and the ruling was quite clearly, and in multiple statements, against any form of alternate vote. It's never been tested again in Minnesota, and at least one city abandoned an IRV proposal on the basis that it was, by precedent, unconstitutional, which was correct. However, Minneapolis is going ahead with its own plans, and thus there will be a legal challenge, and I expect election experts, if I or someone else can arrange it, to file an amicus brief supporting the legality of IRV, while at the same time taking care that the basis for this is not confined to the erroneous view that Approval (and thus Bucklin) allows some voters more power than others.That original ruling, Brown v. Smallwood, is well worth reading. Google it; on one page there is a reference to a pdf. It's an anti-IRV page, but the legal arguments there are defective, in my opinion.

I went ahead and removed all four as unsourced. Whether the two-party system is weakened or not depends on the relative strength of the two and third parties. Experts realize this nuance, which is why no reliable source supporting those statements can or ever will be found. I don't care what activists say, they are not reliable sources. ←Ben 05:42, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

This is inviting or beginning an edit war, I'd suggest. The arguments clearly exist, and to claim otherwise is essentially to claim that those who put up this material are lying. However, there is an alternative: take out all unsourced claims in Pro and Con. This is overly stringent, in my view, and I think we should trust each other enough not to have to go to that point. If someone posts a claimed argument that isn't being made anywhere (there are actually straw man arguments in the section, I might get to them today), then we should focus on that. But the arguments about the two party system exist, I testify to it, and so will others, and, ultimately, it would all be sourced. I would not have removed, without this insistence from BenB4, pro-IRV claims that are actually made. The truth of them, in that section, is not the issue, it should be enough that the claims are being made, and I read a lot of pro-IRV material, as well as material opposed. I will, today, however, take out straw man arguments if I find them. For the rest, I will allow at least a day for reflection and consensus to develop before making a second reversal of BenB4, and I'd prefer that someone else do it, actually. Abd 17:17, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I went ahead and removed all four as unsourced. Whether the two-party system is weakened or not depends on the relative strength of the two and third parties. Experts realize this nuance, which is why no reliable source supporting those statements can or ever will be found. I don't care what activists say, they are not reliable sources. ←Ben 05:42, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
Two points...
1. I repeat my comment (and Abd is trying to as well) that the section only claims to state what arguments are used, not what arguments are accurate.
2. You are missing part of the picture when you say "whether the two-party system is weakened or not depends on the relative strength of the two and third parties." What you are missing is that the electoral method used can affect the competitive strength of third parties. With Plurality voting this is basically obvious. For another example, an argument used against IRV is that it prevents third parties from gaining strength, since once a party becomes strong enough to affect the elimination order, it becomes possible for that party to serve as a spoiler. This makes it less effective for a third party of middling strength to nominate candidates, or for their supporters to actually vote for them.
3. If you want a "reliable source" that this phenomenon is possible, consider the article at Duverger's law. KVenzke 19:32, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Article pruning

I started a tiny effort at pruning this too-long article by removing an incomprehensible section called Sample procedure with complexities. Look at a history page if anyone disagrees by this removal. Even if it has value (which I don't think it does), even if it had some sort of sources listed, which it doesn't, it is too long here and ought to be in a sub-article. Tom Ruen 15:22, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

That looked like sample statute language. The thought of having it on Misplaced Pages is terrifying. I can imagine a legislative staffer copy-paste, and then all of the sudden officials are breaking ties with their P3N1Ses. Good riddance! ←Ben 00:16, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Ka-Ping Yee's leaflet

This leaflet does not meet the reliable source criteria. It is self-published by an Approval Voting activist. I believe it is inaccurate in certain respects such as that it presents a contrived example of non-monotonicity unlikely to occur in practice; it overstates the complexity required to describe IRV instructions; calls votes "wasted" and says they do "not count" if they were eliminated in the IRV count -- that is very much not the same as saying all the seat's votes did not count.

It is important to note that all voting systems produce anomalous results per Arrow's impossibility theorem. But none of its theoretical criteria include susceptibility to strategic voting, which is one of AV's greatest flaws. Approval Voting is notoriously easy to game: you simply don't vote for strong candidates that you actually approve of but are not your first choice. That strategy introduces the same spoiler effect as plurality. Approval also has a terrible history in the U.S.: "he first four presidential elections (1788–1800) were conducted using a variant of approval voting. That experiment ended disastrously in 1800 with the infamous Electoral College tie between Jefferson and Burr. The tie ... resulted ... from a strategic tension built into approval voting, which forces two leaders appealing to the same voters to play a game of Chicken.... the tie was a logical outcome of a strategic dilemma created by the voting system, which exacerbated deep distrust between the two Republican candidates and the factions they led" None of these problems are usually raised by AV advocates, but I don't see IRV advocates playing down equipment cost.

Furthermore, we now have comparisons with AV and RV. As they are not based on reliable sources, I'm removing them. ←Ben 19:36, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Approval has a problem with playing Chicken when two candidates appeal to the same voters and there is another candidate to lose to. Ideally, as I see it, a major party must not nominate multiple candidates for the same seat. They don't do it under Plurality and I don't think it makes sense under IRV either.

If voters in an Approval race are fortunate enough to have two clear frontrunners, they just vote for one and not the other. Then it is completely safe to vote for additional (preferred or better-than-average) candidates as well, which is its claim over FPP and IRV.

Further, if there's a center candidate (as defined by where the median voter stands) between a left and right candidate, Approval has an easier time electing the centrist than methods susceptible to a center squeeze.

Approval certainly has its limits, but I wouldn't want you to think Approval advocates have no idea what they are proposing. KVenzke 02:51, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that, but I know that the opinions likely to be found on the internet, in this case, are almost always incongruent with the peer-reviewed literature. I am also well aware that there have been some very misleading peer-reviewed publications on IRV and AV. ←Ben 14:22, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Tactical Voting Section, removing POV and misleading citation

Okay.... To reverse my editing out of this section, BenB4 claimed that the section was sourced. Unfortunately, the source cited, http://www.isye.gatech.edu/~jjb/papers/stv.pdf, is not about IRV. It is about STV. From this paper, in addition, we have, "Note that we are not arguing for the adoption of STV—it has troubling faults documented elsewhere." Further, the argument in the paper is about the difficulty of an individual voter determining strategy, when, in real STV implementations, voters commonly use "How to Vote" cards issued by political parties. Thus strategic voting could be *much* easier than they find in this paper. It must be realized that STV, as an election method, multiwinner, is much less problematic than IRV, single-winner, because the candidate dropping that IRV does has far less effect on the outcome in STV, it only afflicts the *last* seat assignment.

The paper does refer to "single-winner" STV, i.e., IRV, but (1) the conclusions are weaker. If we are going to cite this paper, we should also include the fact that the authors do not consider STV -- not to mention IRV -- a good method. And (2) This paper does not appear to have been peer-reviewed, at least nothing about the citation shows that it was, and (3) The conclusion of the paper has not been confirmed, to my knowledge.

Every country using IRV for single-winner elections has a strong two-party system, and IRV behaves well in two-party systems. But simply Counting All the Votes does just as well, at far lower cost.

This whole issue is highly political at this point, there are active campaigns to promote IRV, and the recent removal of material critical of IRV from the article is serious, particularly given that what amounts to unproven IRV propaganda has been left.

Removing the claim that was, in fact, unsourced -- because the source is not about IRV -- we are left with practically nothing in the section that is not simple assertion of opinion. Further, the very concept of tactical voting is problematic. That is, there is a ready assumption, commonly made, that tactical voting is "bad." Yet tactical voting is a means by which voters attempt to vote, lawfully, to get better results than if they simply voted their preference. Suppose we have an IRV ballot that allows three preferences to be entered. A voter prefers A>B>C. Unfortunately, A, B, and C are not on the ballot. D, E, and F are. Now, how does the voter vote? Write-ins are allowed. *Tactical considerations* require that the voter not use up the three preference slots for moot votes! Even voting for A in first place represents a loss of power, leaving the voter with only two real ranks left. I used write-in votes because it is dramatic, but many elections include more than one candidate who is actually moot, not a prayer of winning. Real IRV elections in San Francisco resulted in many exhausted ballots. Voters who have become familiar with IRV, we can be sure, will vote "tactically," *not* expressing true preference, and I've only given one reason.

The whole question of strategic voting should be relegated to a special page covering all election methods, with only brief citation of it here.

What I'm hoping will happen here is that POV material will be removed (and the claim in the cited paper is itself POV as far as we can tell), and that sourced material representing a consensus of the knowledgeable will replace it. This will take some time. In the mean time, the article should not promote IRV by allowing unproven claims about it. Where there exist allegations of this or that, and these are commonly encountered, they should be placed in a Pro and Con section. However, my experience with Pro and Con sections is that it is an open door for all kinds of misinformation to spread, I've seen it with other controversial pages. Pro and Con should be a *single* section perhaps entitled Controversies over IRV, which then deals with each existing controversy. If it's not controversial, and it is relevant, it belongs in the article, it is, by definition, NPOV.

Yee diagreams, by the way, are a brilliant device for visualizing election methods. That they make IRV look extremely quirky is not because Yee is an "Approval supporter," allegedly, but because IRV is quirky. It really can come up with some spectacularly bad results. This is rare in 2-party systems, but *common* when there are three real contenders, which makes the general sales of IRV to third party supporters .... interesting. "We'll let you get a few votes, but watch out if you actually try to win! -- you just might elect your worst nightmare." 151.203.150.119 16:52, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

By the way, I forgot to enter comment on the last edit removing the Tactical Voting section ... and I wasn't logged in, I wrote the above! Abd 17:06, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Firstly, Bartholdi and Orlin was not the only citation given. IRV is indisputably the same as STV for a single seat, but the drawbacks mentioned have to do with multi-winner STV. Both sources are peer reviewed as should be obvious from the citation; google the journal names if you don't believe it. I have replaced the sourced paragraph from that section. ←Ben 05:34, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

No, it is not true that IRV is "indisputably the same," from the point of view of strategic voting. STV is vulnerable to strategic voting, period, as this is is clear from actual practice in countries using STV. For example, optimal strategy can involve a distribution of votes, so some voter information cards, I've been informed, are randomized to distribute voting patterns. A merely party-recommended preference list would not do that. The *counting method* is the same, but the strategic considerations are not, because the effects of candidate dropping have the strongest effect with the last seat chosen.

Let me explain my goal here. There are *many* POV statements in the article. It is true that you can find papers published claiming this or that about election methods. That it is published somewhere does not make it NPOV. The question whether or not there is a consensus of experts, otherwise any such citation must include weasel words such as "allegedly," or "according to" to be NPOV. This topic is highly political in the U.S., there are active campaigns for IRV (and against it) that include disinformation, often statements that are true, literally, but, taken out of context, lead to misleading conclusions. Proponents of IRV will be quite careful to include, in this article and elsewhere, as many of these misleading assertions as possible, and the nuances count.

My first goal is to get rid of POV statements in the article, not to make the article POV against IRV. When it is claimed that IRV is immune to strategy, that is clearly false, no matter how many papers one might be able to find; to really conclude that it was not, since there are obvious, clear, and simple strategies that *usually* work, would require a review of all the literature. Instead, it is enough to find a significant number of experts who actually differ with the claim on the page to establish that the claim is controversial. And controversial claims do not belong in a Misplaced Pages article unless framed as such. Accordingly, I will be reversing or modifying some of the edits made by BenB4, and leaving any that are NPOV. Once we have a clean article, we can then start to improve it. All the considerations, really, should be in there, but properly framed. Controversial arguments should be labelled as such. Abd 17:22, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Reviewing the section again on Tactical Voting, I took out the following, leaving in the sourced material, which is not controversial and which loses its advocacy implications, over other methods, when placed in context. I.e., all known proposed election reforms resolve the described first-order spoiler effect, and this note has been improved (by BenB4) by noting that the conditions for this are a two-candidate election with other candidates irrelevant, except as spoilers. Further, this part is not controversial. There is no expert claiming that IRV does not resolve the particular problem mentioned. But this section is going to need more information about Tactical Voting, because IRV, in elections where there are three or more viable candidates, can fail spectacularly unless voters vote tactically. And we can source that... Here is what I took out:

in such a situation. The voter can top rank for his top choice knowing that his vote will eventually go to one of the two major candidates when all the minor candidates have been eliminated. IRV is also immune to 'burying' which is possible under some other preferential systems such as Condorcet.

I took out "in such a situation" because it was redundant. I took out the "top rank for his top choice" because there are conditions, found in real elections called "IRV", where top ranking your favorite is a bad idea. Most specifically, if the number of expressable ranks is limited (three in San Francisco, if I'm correct), you are wasting a rank if you use it for a candidate who is not going to win, and you only have three, and some IRV systems only allow two ranks, i.e., top-two runoff IRV as found in certain states now. Since the statement is, *at least*, controversial -- I dispute it!, and so do experts -- It does not belong in a straight factual section. It could be in a Pro and Con section, which, I am noting, I want to replace with a Controversies section where each claim is addressed by both sides. Lists of claims, particularly without sources, are almost useless, though I'm leaving them in for the time being.

And I took out the comment about "burying" because such comments, in isolation and without explanation, can be highly misleading. Any pure ranked method, one that does not allow equal ranking, is known by Arrow's theorem to violate certain intuitively desirable election criteria (and there is a longer list that has been developed since Arrow). I would not mention burying in this article, except as part of a list of criteria satisfied and not satisfied. Such a list actually makes IRV look pretty bad, see the table in our very own Venzke's http://nodesiege.tripod.com/elections/#critfbc. Venzke did not compile this table to make IRV look bad! Notice, in particular, the Favorite Betrayal Criterion. Favorite Betrayal is severe tactical voting, where one ranks another candidate above one's favorite. IRV is vulnerable to this. But many writers treat the problem as the tactical voting! Actually, the problem is an election method which incentivizes it, and tactical voting is a way in which voters, quite sensibly, act to improve results. Tactical voting is essentially smart voting, and it should not, in itself, be considered something to attack and eliminate. Voting intelligently, rather than just knee-jerk preferences, is a *good* thing, and the best methods still require some degree of this.

More specifically, "burying" refers to lowering the ranking of a candidate below one supposed sincere ranking, in order to help one's favorite win. The fact is that IRV is vulnerable to this in the general sense, I've given an example elsewhere today, but in a different form. That is, one may lower the ranking of one's *favorite* in IRV to help a preferred frontrunner win. Burying is thus less offensive than Favorite Betrayal, and this is one reason why alleged invulnerability to burying is not considered such an important Criterion -- it is not on Venzke's list, I think. But this is the hidden truth: in the situation described, there is supposedly one preference, that of one candidate over another, but another actual vote. Yet what burying means is that one strongly wants this buried candidate to lose, and it is considered important. That means that the "sincere rank" of this candidate is actually last, or at least lower than what was assumed. For this reason, I suggest that what is involved in election methods are *votes*, that is, expressions of *power*, not preferences as such. The voter attempts to shift the balance for society in a direction that the voter prefers. It's an action, not an opinion poll. Sure, people can use it as the latter, but that is actually irresponsible! -- in my view. I'd say that we are responsible for the anticipable effects of our actions, and there is no rule that one must vote "sincerely." Under current conditions, it is almost stupid (note, however, that there can be other considerations). If, for example, public campaign financing is tied to votes, a Nader supporter has an incentive to vote for Nader, created by the campaign finance rules, thus inhibiting a vote for the preferred frontrunner. That's actually an argument against public campaign financing: it can distort elections! And, yes, IRV does not have this particular problem, though there are solutions for other methods as well.

Once again, I want to emphasize that my goal here is that the article becomes truly NPOV. I'm not demanding that everything be sourced, because that is premature, and the article exists now, and articles grow and mature. But this article has had, in the past, a lot of quite good material taken out, including material that was sourced, simply because someone disputed the material. I'm just insisting that we be uniform about this. If it is controversial, within reason, it should not be asserted in a Misplaced Pages article as if it were a fact. And this is not difficult to accomplish, actually, if there is a community interested in finding consensus. I'd want IRV advocates to be able to say of the article, "yes, that is true," and the same for IRV opponents. It's all about framing controversy, where it exists, and expressing consensus as fact where there is no reasonable controversy. Abd 18:03, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Evaluation by criteria section

I do not like Abd's revision to this section but I'm having difficulty seeing what this paragraph should be saying in the first place.

Original: Scholars of electoral systems often compare them using mathematically-defined voting system criteria. According to Arrow's impossibility theorem, no voting system can meet all of the criteria. The extent to which these theoretical criteria influence the fairness of an election's outcome varies, and decreases as the number of voters increases.

Revised: Scholars of electoral systems often compare them using mathematically-defined voting system criteria. According to Arrow's impossibility theorem, no ranked voting system can meet all of a specific list of criteria. (Arrow's theorem does not apply to all election methods, and specifically not to Range Voting).

All this section wants to say is that scholars use criteria and not all criteria are compatible. Arrow is just an example. If Arrow doesn't apply to Range (which is doubtful, due to the "unrestricted domain/universality" condition) then there is no reason to mention Arrow here because it fails to make the intended point. KVenzke 17:47, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't particularly like it either. However, some context. It is *common* for Arrow's theorem to be cited in a political context, whenever someone points out that IRV does not satisfy some possibly important election criterion, as a means of defusing the objection. "Oh," the attempted spin is, "no election method satisfies all criteria, so we can ignore this objection." However, Arrow's theorem most certainly does not apply to methods other than pure ranked methods, it does not apply to Approval, to Range, nor to any method that allows equal ranking, if I am correct. It's explicitly about ranked methods, such as IRV. Indeed, Range does satisfy, under certain interpretations, the supposedly contradictory criteria. But my own view is that election criteria give us important information about election methods, but .... not all criteria are created equal, and so the method which satisfies the longest list may not be the best method. Indeed, election criteria generally represent something that sounds like a good idea, such as the Condorcet Criterion: if there is a candidate strictly preferred to all other candidates, such that in a pairwise election between this candidate and each of the others in turn, this candidate would win, that candidate will win the election if the Condorcet Criterion is satisfied. This is actually a very important criterion, because it means that in a real runoff between the Condorcet winner and the IRV winner (IRV fails the Condorcet Criterion) when they are different, the Condorcet winner would win. FairVote makes a big deal out of what it calls "majority rule," but, in fact, IRV violates it. The excuse given is yet another Criterion, this one made up specially for IRV, the so-called Core Support Criterion.

However, election criteria alone are a poor method of comparing election methods, for they do not measure performance.

I have no problem with removing any of the doubtful stuff at this point. If it is legitimately controversial, it should not be in the article, except properly framed. I.e., "there are these controversies about IRV: ..."

The Arrow's theorem argument is going to be encountered by anyone researching IRV, because the error has been repeated in many places. That's why I left it in. And that Arrow's theorem does not apply to cardinal methods is not an argument for Range Voting, Range was mentioned simply as an example of a method which is on the table, to make it clearer what is being talked about. But the whole piece could come out.

To my mind, what is urgent is to get the POV stuff out of the article. Then we can work on developing a consensus about what to put in that will make it more complete. Including Pro/Con arguments. Yee diagrams, of course, are not "arguments," they are verifiable facts.... but like any facts, they can be presented in a distorted context, so it is at this point debatable how applicable they are. I think we can fix that. But it might not be in this article.... Abd 21:32, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

US Centric

Given that Hare system voting (called Instant-runoff in this article) is the primary system of voting in many countries, it seems odd to me that this article is largely phrased in terms of comparisons with first-past-the-post voting. This is not an abstract academic system that is being discussed - it is a real, functional (and IMNSHO vastly superior) electoral system that I spent the first 15 years of my life assuming was the only system. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.206.166.135 (talk) 04:39, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Careful! Talk like that and you will be called a shill for the CVD. But you are right, the Manual of Style insists that all of the names appear in the lead section. ←Ben 00:03, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I took a crack at globalizing it, but it would help to have some more non-U.S. eyes to judge how well I did. ←Ben 06:03, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

The article was already pretty global. "Instant Runoff Voting" is the U.S. name for single-winner STV, and it would be more proper to have articles referencing each other, but using the names and specific characteristics of implementations and history around the world. So if you read that, say, Ireland uses Preferential Voting or whatever they call it, there is an article on that. The article notes the similarities -- and differences, if any -- with IRV. The name IRV is used quite loosely in the U.S.; for example, FairVote calls top-two runoff done instantly on absentee ballots, "IRV." And it is. But full STV it is not, it is merely Instant Top-Two Runoff, which is *not* single-winner STV in terms of strategic vote analysis. It is merely "Alternative Vote."

As to shills for FairVote, I'm not aware of any that are paid and not sincere. However, there are plenty of people, quite sincere and intelligent, who are *dupes* of FairVote. But the writer from wherever (it was not stated) is clearly not such, and he did not repeat any of the formula arguments supplied by FairVote. First of all, he doesn't make it clear what his experience is with. STV is a *much* better system when multiwinner; STV is flawed, but the flaws are mostly theoretical, and don't bite deeply, it appears. If, for example, we were to assume that IRV is "20% flawed," then STV could readily be understood as 10% flawed if two-winner, and 4% flawed if five-winner, and the flaw becomes even smaller if there are more winners. That's a matter of districting. Cambridge, I think, uses something like a 10-winner system, so STV there should be quite good.

I'm serious about this. The Misplaced Pages article is used as a primary source by many people, in real political controversies, with possibly major consequences, and so information in Misplaced Pages should be solid, reliable, and NPOV. It is not that controversy should be avoided, but that controversy is presented, if it is to be presented, in a fair and balanced way, not with arguments selectively presented by one side. For example, there are lots of real reasons to consider IRV a poor solution to the spoiler effect. But in the Con arguments, what do we see? Weak and clearly ignorant arguments, not including the much stronger ones made by experts who actually oppose IRV. Where do we find in the article mention of *common* points made by experts about IRV, including a comment made in the very sources that BenB4 wants left in with respect to Tactical Voting. That author, attempting to prove that STV -- not "IRV" -- is immune to strategy, or, more accurately, that it is an NP-hard problem -- *also* notes that IRV is not a good method. But political writers who are attempting to manipulate public information to their advantage know that most people won't look at the sources. Hence, as editors, we must be very careful to insure that what we present is balanced. And that claim about strategy in IRV is actually preposterous when applied to real elections. To see this takes careful reading and broader understanding, but it's also been published in peer-reviewed sources.

I'm assuming that we can find some consensus here. I know that there are knowledgeable participants here who are not trying to grind some political axe, such as Kevin Venzke. At least as far as I know, he isn't! BenB4, on the other hand, is obviously concerned about preserving as much pro-IRV argument as possible, particularly if it can be disguised as neutral content. It's blatant; just look at the history of edits. So far, I haven't seen him take out any pro-IRV material, or add any con material. Now, I haven't taken out much con material, myself, but, frankly, there isn't much in the article yet. By "con" material I mean two kinds of content: known facts, not legitimately controversial, which could lead a reader, possibly, toward a "con" conclusion, and actual con arguments, which must be framed as controversial and being allegations or assertions found in the community discussing the method. In the latter class should properly be included alleged "facts" that have not been broadly accepted by the knowledgeable as true. Abd 17:20, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Arrow's theorem and equal rankings

Curious about this edit: (Any system which allows equal ranking is not covered by Arrow's theorem, but IRV is generally implemented with prohibition of equal ranking, and so Arrow's theorem applies to IRV.)

I don't know why allowing equal-ranking isn't covered by Arrow's theorem. A ballot with a tied ranking can be theoretically replaced by a weighted set of ballots with all combinations of the tie. So a ballot 1:, can be replaced by two purely ranked ballots: 1/2:, and 1/2:. (A 3-way equal ranking divides into 6 combinations of rankings, etc.) Tom Ruen 01:44, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Let's put it this way: Arrow's theorem explicitly applies to ranked (ordinal) methods, and, if I'm correct, the proof depends on the ranks being unique. Now, I might be confused by the fact that Arrow's Theorem does not apply to Range Voting, where the issue is more than equal ranking, it is also the inclusion of preference strength information. But until and unless we see some evidence about this, properly sourced, and unless we can agree on a wording short of that, it shouldn't be in the article. If I've erred and put in something inaccurate or which is, without being properly framed, controversial, by all means, please edit it. I do know that one very sharp mathematician has written extensively about Arrow's theorem not applying to Range, and Range N voting is equivalent to each Range vote being replaced by a set of N individual Approval Votes, and Approval is merely Plurality with equal ranking allowed. So, sources anyone? It is not enough to come up with, here, some unrefuted argument.... that's original research! Anyway, I'm glad that some are *thinking* about this. It gives me hope that we can find consensus on what belongs in the article and what does not. Abd 02:54, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't like conflict here much at all, and my thoughts are just mathematical logic. I think I read somewhere (in relation to STV) that STV equal-rankings can be done with weighted rank-combination adjusted ballots, but could be from some email list from someone no more qualified than me. Anyway, I'd definitely support removing an unnecessary claim (that I don't believe is true.) BUT I'll let you do it (or not) as you like. Tom Ruen 03:53, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

P.S. The equal-rank combination substitution equivalence only applies to IRV/STV, not any other rank method, or definitely wouldn't work for multivote systems like Borda count and Bucklin voting anyway. I only mentioned this equivalence since it allowed me to contradict the claim in relation to Arrow's theorem for IRV. Tom Ruen 03:58, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Robert's Rules of Order in Introductory Section

The Introduction contained this: IRV is recommended by Robert's Rules of Order for electing officers by mail and is used in many non-governmental elections.

The link refers to the article in which something different is stated. This is what is there:

Majority rule is a basic principle of parliamentary law as set forth in RONR. In multi-candidate elections, RONR encourages the use of repeated balloting until one candidate receives a majority. Preferential voting is mentioned in recent editions of RONR. While RONR advocates the use of the majority vote in situations in which an assembly is physically gathered together, it views preferential voting as superior to plurality in other situations. Specifically, the book notes, "In an international or national society where the election is conducted by mail ballot, a plurality is sometimes allowed to elect officers, with a view to avoiding the delay and extra expense that would result from additional balloting under these conditions. A better method in such cases is for the bylaws to prescribe some form of preferential voting" (RONR , p. 392, l. 8-13).

This is not a recommendation of IRV. Taken with the majority rule principle enunciated above, a method which better simulates actual deliberative process would be preferred to IRV. However, it would seem wise to look at the source, and, it is given in the RONR article as ... FairVote! (In a mail to me, Rob Richie of FairVote claimed that he had nothing to do with this article. Sure, not personally! But FairVote material and arguments are written all over this article, which is fair enough, as long as it is understood and clear that FairVote is an advocacy organization, and far from neutral.

Anyway, following the citation, which contains quotation from the 2000 edition of Robert's Rules, we see "Preferential voting has many variations. One method is described here by way of illustration." FairVote claims that "preferential voting" is IRV, but the editors of the rules make it clear that there is more than one method, IRV is just one of them. The Rules make no specific recommendation as to which method is best. And, further, at the end of the quoted material, we must congratulate FairVote for including this and not truncating the quotation before it, we find:

The system of preferential voting just described should not be used in cases where it is possible to follow the normal procedure of repeated balloting until one candidate or proposition attains a majority. Although this type of preferential ballot is preferable to an election by plurality, it affords less freedom of choice than repeated balloting, because it denies voters the opportunity of basing their second or lesser choices on the results of earlier ballots, and because the candidate or proposition in last place is automatically eliminated and may thus be prevented from becoming a compromise choice.

This is precisely the major criticism of IRV that is most commonly made by experts. There are other voting methods which allow alternative votes which do not suffer from this problem, and, indeed, one of them is extremely simple, just count all the votes from a standard plurality-style ballot! (but, of course, ballot instructions would no longer say "Vote for one only.") This is a form of Alternative Vote. Likewise, IRV, if implemented without no-overvoting rules, would no longer suffer from this problem. But all proposed IRV implementations I have seen prohibit overvotes explicitly. (An "overvote" in IRV is an equal ranking. Thus if one equal-ranks two candidates in first position, both candidates have one's vote in the first round, and "majority" means a "majority of ballots," not "a majority of votes," because if equal ranking is allowed, there can be more marks than voters. The winner still gets only one vote, at most, from each voter. The additional votes are "alternative votes," which become moot when the candidate to which they are awarded is not a winner.)

Robert's Rules has not recommended IRV, but rather a class of methods which arguably includes Approval and it is clear from the discussion that IRV has flaws which are considered undesirable; however, IRV is fairly simple to understand (in terms of how it works, not in terms of its implications) and is in actual use in some places, so it is natural that it is given as an example.

One more problem here. The method described in the Rules text quoted by FairVote is *similar* to IRV, but it is not IRV. In particular, it properly defines "majority" as being a majority of ballots, not of votes remaining in the last round. The difference is important. IRV as normally implemented is actually a plurality method, the Robert's Rules implementation is a majority method.

I took out the claim. Something like it may appear elsewhere in the article, properly framed and qualified. Abd 02:46, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

My response is UGH! Majority support is meaningless outside of a "single-vote" system. Looks to me like it is saying: For majority rule: (1) Use repeated balloting (no elimination) if possible (2) Use rank ballots and IRV otherwise. Leaving candidates unranked in IRV is equivalent to abstaining from voting in a round when all ranked candidates are gone. Repeated balloting would ALSO not count abstentions on whether a vote passes or fails. Tom Ruen 04:16, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I see a new article has been created Voting methods in Robert's Rules of Order. Tom Ruen 04:18, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

This edit is in error, and a reflection of Abd's other changes that reflected his support for other voting systems. Robert's Rules of Order is quite clear on this subject, going into a detailed explanation of a classic IRV as its example of "preferential voting." it is true that is does not discount other variations of preferential voting, but it does not define them and clearly is supportive of IRV as its main defintion of what "preferential voting" means. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.75.46.82 (talk) 12:54, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

First of all, my opinion about other voting systems is irrelevant. What is relevant is whether or not POV information remains in the article. POV can include any sort of imbalanced presentation of material. I quoted all the relevant sections from Robert's rules above, so if anyone wishes to review this, while they may certainly wish to verify what I've written, it's all above. Robert's rules do not mention "Instant Runoff Voting." A method there is described which *resembles* IRV, but which does not match the description of IRV given in the article. Most critically, no legitimate votes are excluded from being considered the voting body for the purposes of determining the majority, hence the RR form of "preferential voting" must always elect a majority preference, or it fails. Which Robert's Rules fully accepts and considers necessary, again for reasons that were explained. This is not the "IRV" that is being proposed in the U.S. for public elections; the true majority requirement is a crucial difference. Redefine IRV to require a true majority to elect, *then* you could reasonably claim that RR recommends IRV, though even then it would not be an exclusive recommendation, as implied by the claim that I took out and which was, with no further discussion, put back. Arguably POV material should not be in the article, period, unless there is a consensus. I spent a fair amount of time reading the Misplaced Pages suggested rules, and, folks, there are some active people here who apparently don't understand them. That's fine.... but I'm reverting it to take out the controversial claim, and if necessary, I will ask for intervention. I think this issue is pretty clear, even more clear than some of the other edits I've made recently.

It should be understood that any edit to remove POV material is going to be objected to as biased by those who are biased. But there are relatively objective standards for what is POV and what is not. You want the RR reference in the article? Frame it properly, make sure that is not potentially misleading, and I have no objection. The method described in RR *does* resemble IRV -- and thus there is relevance, but the difference is crucial and, in fact, I think a number of the objections to IRV would disappear if IRV was following the RR suggested method. However, other aspects of the RR discussion shows that RR would greatly prefer to see a Condorcet winner prevail. Majority rule. *Real* majority, not the majority that appears in IRV if exhausted ballots are not considered. Quite explicitly, those ballots are part of the group by which "majority" is defined. One may certainly argue that it is important that the election complete without a runoff, but RR is *not* recommending that a plurality winner be accepted, and that is what standard IRV does as proposed in the U.S., see certain elections in San Francisco. In Australia, I understand, they avoid the problem by *requiring* that all candidates be ranked, hence no legal ballots are exhausted. That is not being proposed in the U.S.

I'm proposing an operating principle for us. Nothing should be in the article if there is not a consensus for it being properly NPOV. Yes, idiosyncratic opinions can be disregarded, but the objection I have raised here to the Robert's Rules mention is quite clear. It is entirely possible that a true statement, placed without proper qualification and context, is POV. The issue is whether or not the statement is likely to be misleading. And we will be addressing a number of similar issues. The RR comment is, overall, likely to be taken as an endorsement of something that is not being endorsed, and that it is not exclusive to "IRV" is also important. Eventually, in fact, I would put it back in, myself. It *is* relevant that something like IRV is described in Robert's Rules. But it must be properly done. This is an *extremely* controversial topic, with political implications. I'm reverting it. Abd 00:18, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

1. http://www.aceproject.org/main/english/es/esy_au.htm, accessed 11 May 2006

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