> My two cents - it strikes me that countries that have relied on first past
> the post are to a disproportionate degree among the most stable, free and
> prosperous democracies. I've never quite seen why the impulse to tinker
> with success.
>
> Bradley A. Smith
> Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault Designated Professor of Law
> Capital University Law School
> 303 E. Broad St.
> Columbus, OH 43215
> (614) 236-6317
>
http://www.law.capital.edu/Faculty/Bios/bsmith.asp
> ________________________________
> From:
election-law-bounces@mailman.lls.edu on behalf of Rob Richie
> Sent: Sat 5/7/2011 1:55 PM
> To: Scarberry, Mark
> Cc:
JBoppjr@aol.com;
election-law@mailman.lls.edu;
David@holtzmanlaw.com
> Subject: Re: [EL] a "thumping" in the U.K. AV referendum
>
>
> I'd take Condorcet voting over plurality voting in a heartbeat, but I
> suspect it will be very hard to convince people to adopt it -- certainly it
> will be harder than winning IRV-alternative vote, which can be hard as it
> is. A couple things Condorcet voters have to explain:
> * A candidate can win who is nobody's first choice.
> * You can have a cycle where no candidate defeats every other candidate
> (e.g, A defeats B, B defeats C and C defeats A) - -and then have to get to
> tiebreaking procedures. Due to this, your selection of a second choice can
> count against the chances of your first choice, which will trouble people.
> More broadly, Condorcet discounts the "tribal" reality of politics as it is.
> Take Larry Levine's, bitter messages yesterday against Jean Quan's win in
> the mayoral race in Oakland last year. I think Quan's victory was quite
> clear. She defeats Don Perata in a one-on-one comparison (both citywide and
> in well over half the precincts) and won more votes than any Oakland mayoral
> candidate had won in decades, but Larry can't get over the fact that she had
> fewer first choices than Perata. Imagine if instead of Quan winning it was
> some candidate who trailed much further behind in first choices as in 4th or
> 5th place in 1st choices. Accepting that result will take a real change in
> what people expect winners to achieve.
> I'll use one real example of another aspect to consider: the 2009 Burlington
> mayoral race with IRV. The plurality vote leader in first choices was the
> Republican candidate. He lost to the second place Progressive Party
> candidate in instant runoff voting, just as he would have lost to him in a
> runoff if all the same voters had come back to vote.. He also would have
> lost to the third place Democrat in a one-on-one race - and so would the
> Progressive. So the third-place Democrat was the Condorcet winner, but
> observers of that race would generally say that the Democrat ran a lousy,
> uninspiring campaign. Condorcet would reward him just by his positioning on
> the ideological spectrum (between the Progressives voters and the Republican
> voters). Even when working clearly, therefore, Condorcet would create a kind
> of "tyranny of the center", with that centrist candidate winning even if
> running a lame campaign. (And as a coda, all the political energy against
> IRV came from backers of the Republican candidate, the "condorcet loser,"
> rather than the Condorcet-winning Democrat who backed keeping IRV despite
> his defeat).
> Again, this critique is all relative, but I like the fact that IRV winners
> have to go out there and earn first choices by inspiring some real support
> -- even as they also get value out of earning second and third choices of
> backers of others candidates. An intern did a thoughtful piece on this issue
> last year -- see:
>
http://www.fairvote.org/why-the-condorcet-criterion-is-less-important-than-it-seems/
> Rob
> On Sat, May 7, 2011 at 12:29 PM, Scarberry, Mark
> <
Mark.Scarberry@pepperdine.edu> wrote:
>>
>> If you require mandatory ranking then you could use a Condorcet approach,
>> right? My math whiz friend says that you only need very minimal assumptions
>> to get a Condorcet ranking out of the voting, if each voter ranks each
>> candidate.
>>
>>
>>
>> I’m not a Condorcet expert by any means, and this subject may have already
>> been beaten to death on this list. But my best understanding of it is that
>> you run each candidate against every other candidate in head to head races,
>> and the one who beats all the others in these head to head races is the
>> Condorcet winner. It makes sense to me to treat such a Condorcet winner as
>> the winning candidate.
>>
>>
>>
>> If every voter ranks every candidate then you can derive the head to head
>> results as long as each voter’s preferences are transitive (if that’s the
>> term). But you still have the possibility that A will beat B who beats C who
>> beats A. We’ve never had that happen in faculty voting on new hires, but you
>> need a way to break the tie if you get such a “cycle.” Perhaps someone can
>> tell us whether there is a jurisdiction that uses Condorcet voting, and how
>> likely it is that you will get a cycle.
>>
>>
>>
>> Mark Scarberry
>>
>>
>>
>> Mark S. Scarberry
>>
>> Professor of Law
>>
>> Pepperdine Univ. School of Law
>>
>> Malibu, CA 90263
>>
>> (310) 506-4667
>>
>>
>>
>> From:
election-law-bounces@mailman.lls.edu
>> [mailto:
election-law-bounces@mailman.lls.edu] On Behalf Of Rob Richie
>> Sent: Saturday, May 07, 2011 8:22 AM
>> To:
JBoppjr@aol.com
>> Cc:
David@holtzmanlaw.com;
election-law@mailman.lls.edu
>>
>> Subject: Re: [EL] a "thumping" in the U.K. AV referendum
>>
>>
>>
>> Hi, Jim,
>>
>>
>>
>> There are a couple issues here.
>>
>>
>>
>> 1. Some American jurisdictions have implemented instant runoff voting with
>> a limitation on rankings tied to current voting equipment inflexibility --
>> three rankings in such cities as Oakland, Minneapolis and San Francisco.
>> That means it's possible that you could rank three candidates who don't end
>> up in the final two in the IRV tally.
>>
>>
>>
>> This limitation on three rankings is subject of a federal lawsuit against
>> San Francisco, but it is a losing case -- by summary judgment at the
>> district level and soon from the 9th circuit, based on the tenor of oral
>> argument. The plaintiffs' argument is dependent on seeing each round as a
>> "separate election," which is not the case. If plurality voting is okay,
>> with voters limited to one ranking, then giving voters to backup
>> opportunities to cast a decisive vote is okay too.
>>
>>
>>
>> 2. More broadly, most implementations of IRV don't limit rankings, but
>> allow voters to abstain from ranking every candidate. If you rank some
>> candidates and then choose not to rank remaining candidates, you are
>> expressing indifference to those remaining candidates -- essentially saying
>> you wouldn't have voted if those were the only candidates running. If we
>> grant voters the right to abstain, you can see how that decision to abstain
>> from ranking is no more of a dilution of the will of the voters than saying
>> that all the people who don't vote at all should be counted against the
>> winner.
>>
>>
>>
>> Australia has mandatory voting -- and mandatory ranking in its IRV
>> elections. So if you want to force people to express an opinion, you can --
>> but I suspect a lot of Americans might resist that notion, as abstention is
>> one means of expressing a political opinion.
>>
>>
>>
>> Given Jon. Huntsman's potential presidential candidacy in a very divided
>> presidential field next year in which "winners" of early contests may have
>> low percentages of the vote, there's value in taking a look at an IRV
>> election in which he participated: at the 2004 Utah state convention with
>> several thousand votesrs See coverage of that race here:
>>
>>
http://archive.fairvote.org/irv/utahindex.html
>>
>>
>>
>> And the actual count, round by round, here -- there were eight candidates
>> and the field narrowed to two, with those two going onto a primary because
>> neither earned 60% to win the nomination outright:
>>
>>
http://archive.fairvote.org/irv/utahresults.htm
>>
>>
>>
>> best regards,
>>
>> Rob Richie
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, May 7, 2011 at 10:13 AM, <
JBoppjr@aol.com> wrote:
>>
>> As I understand it, the result of "ranked-choice" is that some voters
>> are left out, even potentially a lot of them, if they did not "rank" any of
>> the remaining candidates. How can this result in an election that reflects
>> the will of the voters? Jim Bopp
>>
>>
>>
>> In a message dated 5/6/2011 6:51:56 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
>>
David@holtzmanlaw.com writes:
>>
>> In Los Angeles, the League of Women Voters advocates using the
>> “alternative vote.” We call it “instant runoff” or “ranked-choice” voting.
>> Many politicians do resist it, since the existing system has served them
>> well. Nevertheless, some members of the L.A. City Council, just two shy of
>> the number needed, were willing to put it to a vote in March.
>>
>> Voters here would likely have embraced the change, because ranked-choice
>> ballots allow better expression of voters’ preferences, and instant runoffs
>> (elimination of last-place candidates until a candidate receives a majority
>> of the votes for candidates who remain) make elections fairer — and spare
>> everybody the costs of a separate runoff election day.
>>
>> While the British Prime Minister belittled the proposed election method as
>> “only used by Australia, Fiji, and Papua New Guinea,” he left out
>> neighboring Ireland, and paid no attention to the method’s success in San
>> Francisco and Oakland, and at UCLA, where the Undergraduate Students
>> Association Council recently voted unanimously to retain it.
>>
>> -- David A. Holtzman
>> President, League of Women Voters of Los Angeles
>>
>> (I wrote this in response to the L.A. Times story,
>>
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-britain-election-20110506,0,3383863.story)
>>
>>
>> On 5/6/2011 2:15 PM, Rob Richie wrote:
>>
>> Yes, indeed. British voters sent a message that they don't want a voting
>> system that will cost them 250 million pounds, give some voters more votes
>> than other voters and give the currently despised Liberal Democrats ongoing
>> power to control government. Now what they would think about the alternative
>> vote as it actually is, who knows...
>>
>>
>>
>> One must accept the voice of the people on this, of course, and it does
>> demonstrate that new voting rules can have difficulty withstanding
>> over-the-top miscategorization, particularly when coming from people (like
>> the David Cameron for the Conservative Party and some of the "old lions" of
>> the Labour Party that opposed AV) that people want to believe in.
>>
>>
>>
>> For folks recognizing the origins of our electoral rules in Britain,
>> however, there is an important story to be told in reading the article Rick
>> circulated to the bottom. For one, the genie is out of the bottle as far as
>> a neat-and-tidy two-party system there. The Scottish National Party won a
>> majority of seats in Scottish assembly elections, for example, and the two
>> major parties (just like in last year's elections) continue to share a
>> growing share of votes with other parties (last year, a third of voters
>> didn't vote for the two major parties, and more than half of districts were
>> won with less than 50%).. Plurality, "top of the heap" voting isn't meant
>> for such a political reality, so the conversation about what to do about it
>> will continue whether the Tories want it to or not.
>>
>>
>>
>> Second, the UK is far ahead of us in using alternative voting systems in
>> key elections. Scotland and Wales used "mixed member" proportional
>> representation (MMP_ yesterday, for example. MMP is an intriguing method
>> developed with American leadership in Germany after World War 2 that
>> combines winner-take-all districts elections with proportional voting, one
>> also adopted in a national referendum in New Zealand in 1993. Northern
>> Ireland yesterday used the choice voting, AV-type single transferable vote
>> system to elect its regional assembly and local governments, as Scotland
>> does in its local elections as well. Next year, London will elect its mayor
>> with a form of the alternative vote (simplified to voters having two
>> rankings and candidates needing to finish in the top two to win) and MMP for
>> city council.
>>
>>
>>
>> So onward, despite a lot of disappointment in our reform world,
>>
>> Rob Richie
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, May 6, 2011 at 4:21 PM, Rick Hasen <
rhasen@law.uci.edu> wrote:
>>
>>
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/may/06/av-over-yes-campaign-routed
>> --
>> Rick Hasen
>> Visiting Professor
>> UC Irvine School of Law
>> 401 E. Peltason Dr., Suite 1000
>> Irvine, CA 92697-8000
>> 949.824.3072 - office
>> 949.824.0495 - fax
>>
rhasen@law.uci.edu
>>
http://law.uci.edu/faculty/page1_r_hasen.html
>>
>> William H. Hannon Distinguished Professor of Law
>> Loyola Law School
>>
http://electionlawblog.org
>> _______________________________________________
>> election-law mailing list
>>
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>>
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>>
>>
>> --
>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>> "Respect for Every Vote and Every Voice"
>>
>> Rob Richie
>> Executive Director
>>
>> FairVote
>> 6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 610
>> Takoma Park, MD 20912
>>
www.fairvote.org rr@fairvote.org
>> (301) 270-4616
>>
>> Please support FairVote through action and tax-deductible donations -- see
>>
http://fairvote.org/donate. For federal employees, please consider a gift
>> to us through the Combined Federal Campaign (FairVote's CFC number is
>> 10132.) Thank you!
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>>
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>>
>>
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>>
>>
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> David A. Holtzman, M.P.H., J.D.
>>
david@holtzmanlaw.com
>>
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>>
>> --
>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>> "Respect for Every Vote and Every Voice"
>>
>> Rob Richie
>> Executive Director
>>
>> FairVote
>> 6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 610
>> Takoma Park, MD 20912
>>
www.fairvote.org rr@fairvote.org
>> (301) 270-4616
>>
>> Please support FairVote through action and tax-deductible donations -- see
>>
http://fairvote.org/donate. For federal employees, please consider a gift
>> to us through the Combined Federal Campaign (FairVote's CFC number is
>> 10132.) Thank you!
>
>
> --
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> "Respect for Every Vote and Every Voice"
>
> Rob Richie
> Executive Director
>
> FairVote
> 6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 610
> Takoma Park, MD 20912
>
www.fairvote.org rr@fairvote.org
> (301) 270-4616
>
> Please support FairVote through action and tax-deductible donations -- see
>
http://fairvote.org/donate. For federal employees, please consider a gift
> to us through the Combined Federal Campaign (FairVote's CFC number is
> 10132.) Thank you!
>
>
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