[image by Brion Vibber]
Make instant runoff voting happen in LA by getting to the LA City Hall on Wednesday for a hearing on an IRV-friendly motion.
What’s IRV? Basically, instead of just voting for one candidate, voters rank candidates by preference. Everyone’s vote counts for their top choice, and the candidate in last place is elimiated. Then, everyone’s vote’s counted again and goes toward the highest-ranked of the remaining choices. Last-place candidates are eliminated one by one, and ballots are recounted accordingly, until someone has a majority. I’ve written a more detailed post about it here; the LA Times wrote about IRV yesterday as a potential fix for voter fatigue.
Now, LA City Councilmembers Huizar and Garcetti intro’d a motion that would move the city a step closer to using IRV for elections. The Rules and Elections Committee hearing on the motion happens this Wednesday, June 13, 2007, at 3 pm, at LA City Hall, 201 N. Main St., downtown Los Angeles.
The agenda’s here (PDF); the motion’s here (PDF).
That’s awesome! I can’t make it to City Hall this Wednesday, but I totally support LA moving to IRV.
Comment by Ken — June 12, 2007 @ 12:35 am
Thanks for the write-up. IRV is a something-for-everyone reform: cost savings for the right, much higher voter turnout for the left, no threat from vote splitting for everybody.
If you can’t attend the meeting (and even if you can), you should write to the members of the committee; see Californians for Electoral Reform for details.
Comment by Bob Richard — June 12, 2007 @ 7:01 am
Most IRV articles features common myths that are perpetuated by IRV propaganda groups, like FairVote.org. The truth is that better and simpler methods than IRV exist – and IRV is lethal to third parties, because voting for a non-major-party candidate is statistically more likely to hurt you than help you. The world needs Range Voting or its simplified form of Approval Voting. Here’s why.
Consider this hypothetical election using IRV.
% of voters – their vote
28% “Green” > Edwards > McCain
20% Edwards > “Green” > McCain
6% Edwards > McCain > “Green”
46% McCain > Edwards > “Green”
In this IRV election, Edwards is eliminated in the first round, and then McCain wins against “Green”. But wait! 54% of voters prefer Edwards to McCain – and 72% prefer Edwards to “Green”! Yet Edwards loses? The Greens now slap themselves on the forehead for not strategically top-ranking Edwards, the most similar major party candidate to their true favorite.
IRV sounds initially appealing, because people picture a weak third party candidate who loses in the first round. The myth is that this takes away the fear of voting for your sincere favorite candidate, and gives third parties a fair chance to grow; but if that candidate or his party ever grows to be a contender, he is statistically more likely to hurt the party closest to his own than to win. It doesn’t matter how unlikely you imagine the above scenario to be – it’s still _more_ likely than the odds “Green” will win. And so third party voters will learn to strategically vote for their favorite major-party candidate. You don’t have to buy my math; you can look at decades of IRV usage in Australia’s house, and Ireland’s presidency. Both use IRV, and have been two-party dominated. So much for the myths that IRV allows you to “vote your hopes, not your fears”, and eliminates spoilers. Now we know why the Libertarian Reform Caucus calls IRV a “bullet in the foot” for third parties.
Electoral reform advocates (especially third parties!) should be demanding Range Voting – score all the candidates and elect the one with the highest average. Its simplified form, Approval Voting, is probably the most feasible to implement. It simply uses ordinary ballots, but allows us to vote for as many candidates as we like. Consider the benefits:
* Spoiler free: Whereas IRV merely _reduces_ spoilers
* Simpler to use and implement: A simple one-round summation tells us the results, whereas IRV’s potential for multiple rounds can cause long delays before the final results are determined. A side-effect of Range Voting’s simplicity is that it makes the necessary transition away from voting machines more feasible. IRV’s complexity leads most communities implementing it to purchase expensive and fraud-conducive (electronic!) voting machines, the fraudster’s best friend.
* More resistant to strategy: As we see above, IRV often strategically “forces” voters not to top-rank their sincere favorite. But with Range Voting and Approval Voting, this _never_ happens. A vote for your favorite candidate can never hurt you, or the candidate. With IRV it can hurt both.
* Decreases spoiled ballots: Since voting for more than one candidate is permissible, the number of invalid ballots experimentally goes down with Range and Approval Voting. But here in San Francisco, we saw a seven fold increase in spoiled ballots when we started using IRV.
* Greater voter satisfaction: Using extensive computer modeling of elections, a Princeton math Ph.D. named Warren D. Smith has shown that these methods lead to better average satisfaction with election results, surpassing the alternatives by a good margin. But IRV turns out to be the second _worst_ of the commonly proposed alternatives. This mean that all voters will benefit from the adoption of either of these superior voting methods, regardless of political stripe.
* Reduces the probability of ties: While they are not extremely common, they do happen. IRV statistically increases them, but Range Voting decreases them.
Get the facts at RangeVoting.org and ApprovalVoting.org
And if you’re in the market for a better system of proportional representation than the antiquated STV system, check out Reweighted Range Voting and Asset Voting.
http://RangeVoting.org/RRV.html
http://RangeVoting.org/Asset.html
Comment by Clay Shentrup — June 12, 2007 @ 7:24 am
Bob Richard,
IRV is deadly to third parties. That’s a mathematical and empircal fact. We only need to look at decades of use of IRV in Australia in Ireland, Australia, Malta, and Fiji to see this.
Aussies consider this a point of unquestionable fact.
http://rangevoting.org/AusIRV.html
Many estimates say IRV will actually _increase_ costs. Conside this recent report from the University of Vermont.
http://rangevoting.org/VermontIrvCost.html
And you are wrong about the vote splitting issue. The example in my other post here clearly demonstrates that IRV does not eliminate vote splitting. So voters still have a strategic incentive to vote for their favorite major candidate, not their sincere favorite candidate. With IRV, a vote for a third party candidate can still be a vote for your least favorite major party candidate. That’s a fact you continue to ignore or deny. And considering that I’ve explained this to you before, repeating your false claim could be viewed as dishonest.
The simple solution is Range Voting, or its simplified form of Approval Voting. It’s cheaper and simpler than IRV, eliminates vote splitting, and gives third parties a fair chance. Third parties have _got_ to stop their suicidal support for IRV.
Clay Shentrup
San Francisco, CA
415.240.1973
Comment by Clay Shentrup — June 12, 2007 @ 10:21 am
From: David Holtzman
To: “Friends, Members and Supporters of L.A. VoteFIRE”
Subject: [LAvoteFIRE] Please Be At L.A. City Hall 3-5pm Wednesday 6/13 for IRV!
Dear Friends and Supporters of Having Instant Runoff Elections,
As you may know by now, Los Angeles City Councilmembers Huizar and
Garcetti have introduced a motion that would move the city a step closer
to using Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) for its elections. Compared to the
two-round runoff system L.A. has now, IRV would make elections more
fair, more voter-friendly, and less costly!
The fate of things like this is often decided at committee meetings, and
the big committee meeting for IRV in LA is coming up very soon. So . . .
To help, please, if you can, be at L.A. City Hall for the Rules and
Elections Committee hearing that starts at 3pm this Wednesday, June 13.
I’ll be there with “IRV 4 LA” stickers, and will be offering spoken
comments. Your simply being there and wearing a sticker would be a huge
help!!! (Especially if you dress nicely!) You can also offer spoken
comments, if you’d like.
The IRV motion is the last thing on the agenda, so even if you arrive by
4pm, you will almost certainly be there in time to show your support.
The meeting will start with presentations by seven civic groups on ways
to increase voter turnout. You can see the agenda at
http://lacity.org/clk/committeeagend/clkcommitteeagend2945708_06132007.pdf.
The IRV motion
(http://clkrep.lacity.org/councilfiles/07-1378_mot_5-2-07.pdf) is item
(2)(e) on the agenda.
After the meeting, VoteFIRE people and other friends of IRV will walk
over to Olvera Street, near Union Station, for drinks and burritos. I
hope you can join us!
— David Holtzman, Founder
Los Angeles Voters For Instant Runoff Elections (L.A. VoteFIRE)
p.s. Getting to City Hall is not super easy, but here are some tips.
Please email or call me (310-477-5934) if you need help with travel
arrangements.
The main public entrance to City Hall (201 N. Main St., 90012) is on the
west side of Main Street, between Temple and 1st Streets. Security
screening and signing in (bring ID) can take 5 minutes.
Metro subway Red Line: The Civic Center Station exits are on Hill
Street (at 1st or between Temple and 1st). Main Street is three blocks
east of Hill Street. Count on a 5-minute walk to get around City Hall
to the Main Street entrance, which is on the far side of the building.
For info on getting to the Civic Center Station, see the trip planner at
http://metro.net/default.asp.
Driving: Temple is one full block south of the 101 Freeway “downtown
slot,” and 1st street is one long block south of that. The closest
freeway exits on the 101 are Los Angeles Street (if you’re coming from
west of downtown) and Spring Street (coming from the east). Parking at
City Hall is very expensive, but if you call your councilmember’s
office, you can often arrange free parking for a city hall visit. (To
find the phone number for your councilmember’s office, see
http://www.lacity.org/council.htm.) The “LA Mall” public parking
entrance is on the west side of Los Angeles Street, about 1/2 block
south of the downtown slot. The official permit and visitor entrance is
on the west side of Los Angeles Street, about 1/2 block south of Temple
St., across Los Angeles Street from Parker Center (the LAPD police
headquarters).
A better strategy for driving, if you haven’t arranged parking, and have
the time, may be to exit from the I-10 Santa Monica freeway eastbound at
Grand Ave, turn left at Olive Street, and park in one of the lots that
seem to get more expensive as you get closer to the heart of downtown.
Then you can take a DASH bus, line D, to City Hall for 25 cents (catch
it on Olive south of Venice or Pico, or on Hill north of 12th or south
of Olympic (see
http://www.ladottransit.com/dash/routes/downtown/downtown.pdf). The D
DASH runs every 5 minutes, and should be about a 10-15 minute ride.
DASH from Union Station: You can also take a quick DASH ride (25 cents)
to City Hall from Union Station. The D DASH runs from the Patsaouras
bus plaza side of the Station, or you can pick up the (every-8-minutes)
B DASH across Alameda Street from the main entrance. Walking from Union
Station can work, too (it should take about 15 minutes).
Comment by Lisa — June 12, 2007 @ 12:06 pm
There’s no evidence that Instant Runoff Voting would make elections any more “fair” and voter-friendly. On the contrary, San Francisco saw a seven-fold increase in the number of spoiled ballots when they switched to IRV – showing that voters clearly found something more difficult about IRV.
Also, the University of Vermont report I cited finds that IRV could actually _increase_ costs.
Approval Voting is much simpler and cheaper than IRV, and experimentally reduces spoiled ballots.
Why do so many IRV supporters refuse to listen to the facts?
Comment by Clay Shentrup — June 12, 2007 @ 1:03 pm
Contrary to Shentrup:
1. Third parties win with IRV when they have the ability to have majority support — witness the Burlington mayoral race last year, where Progressive Party candidate Bob Kiss had far less funds than the Democrat, got in late and was not favored, but could rise to the top with a spoiler-free campaign.
2. Burlington had 99.9% of voters cast valid ballots with IRV. San Francisco had 99.6% cast valid ballots with IRV. Takoma Park had 99.5% cat valid ballots. In all cities, exit polls showed overwhelming support for IRV and overwhelming belief it was not hard to use.
3. Approval vote means casting equally weighted votes for more than one person — your votes cancel each other out. Most people don’t want do do that, so they just cast a plurality vote. So.. you’re just back to plurality voting.
There’s a reason that instant runoff voting has all the momentum it has and all the history of use at high elections, and approval voting isn’t used anywhere for any governmental office of any sort.
Comment by Jackson Boyd — June 12, 2007 @ 4:33 pm
Jackson Boyd again demonstrates how IRV supporters often sadly refuse to accept the truth. What happened in Burlington was one in a handful of exceptions to two-party domination in IRV races. Exceptions also happen with plurality voting, but I don’t see third parties claiming that plurality voting is good for them. Consider that out of Australia’s 564 state house + federal IRV seats, _1_ of them is a third party (AU’s One Nation Party).
- http://rangevoting.org/USpartyComp.html
Now what the more conservative voters will realize, is that if they had only given the Democrat their first-place vote, they would have gotten lesser of two liberals. And in all countries where IRV has seen long-term widespread use, voters have quickly learned to game it in just this way – demonstrating that IRV _does not_ eliminate the voting splitting problem, as you falsely claimed that it does (even after I already noted here that it does not).
As for spoilage rates, here’s a fact I didn’t see you deny: with IRV in San Francisco 2004, the ballot spoilage rates were 7 times larger than under plurality voting. The official 2004 count, for instance, was 19,866 spoiled ballots out of 203,971 total. Australia, the country that has held far more IRV elections than any other (using it since 1918) typically has, in _all_ of its territories 2-6 times the number of spoiled ballots in typical plurality-using countries, e.g. Taiwan, Russia, Yugoslavia, Mexico. Approval Voting performs much better, since there’s essentially no such thing as an “over-vote”.
- http://rangevoting.org/SPRates.html
Also, when you cite exit polls that showed “support” from IRV voters, you didn’t mention that an insignificant number of them are voting experts, and were obviously reporting on their subjective experience, with little or no understanding of the objective meaningful qualities of various voting methods. How many of them do you think know what the Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem is, for instance? It’s arguably the most important theorem in all of election science.
> Approval vote means casting equally weighted votes for more than one person — your votes cancel each other out. Most people don’t want do do that, so they just cast a plurality vote. So.. you’re just back to plurality voting.
Another persistent myth. The votes do not cancel each other out, unless you vote for every candidate (which is effectively the same as voting for none). For instance, if you vote for every single candidate but Bush, you are giving yourself the greatest odds of getting “anyone but Bush”.
Consider that in 2000, 90% of Nader voters strategically voted for Gore, so Nader only got 97,488 votes. With Approval Voting, every single one of those “betrayers” could have fearlessly voted for the Green Party candidate too, and he’d have received 10 times as many votes. They’d have no reason to vote plurality style like IRV supporters always falsely claim. But with IRV, you can only safely top-rank a third, if you are sure he won’t beat your favorite major party candidate. If you think that’s a concern, then you are strategically “forced” to top-rank your favorite major party candidate, to prevent getting the greater of two evils. That is, if Greens had ran a stronger candidate than Nader, who could have conceivably beaten Gore, then top-ranking him would have only made Bush more likely to win, by eliminating Gore in the first round. Because of this strategic fact (I emphasize that it _is_ a fact) IRV degrades to plurality voting. So you have it exactly backwards.
> There’s a reason that instant runoff voting has all the momentum it has and all the history of use at high elections, and approval voting isn’t used anywhere for any governmental office of any sort.
Yes. You have just demonstrated that reason. Myths and misinformation among the public. People like me are trying to save democracy using education. You should come aboard and help.
Regards,
Clay Shentrup
San Francisco, CA
415.240.1973
Comment by Clay Shentrup — June 12, 2007 @ 8:02 pm
Range Voting advocates make some good points but all-in-all, IRV is a more “doable” from a political and operational standpoint and less manipulable than range voting. IRV-advocates are dreamers, but Range-Voting advocates are just plain unrealistic.
Comment by Dave — June 12, 2007 @ 10:11 pm
Dave:
I appreciate your response. However, you demonstrate more of the common misconceptions I speak of.
First of all, I advocate Approval Voting, the simplified form of Range Voting, for sheer ease of implementation. It is definitely simpler and more practical than IRV. It uses the standard ballots as we’re all used to, but let’s us vote for as many candidates as we want. It works on all standard voting machines, without the costly hardware upgrades that IRV requires. Its simplicity eases the necessary switch away from voting machines (the fraudster’s best friend) to 100% manual counting, in full public view. It has all the fundamental properties of Range Voting (monotonicity, independence of irrelevant alternatives, consistency, etc.) and picks more satisfying winners than all other common methods, as objectively gauged through extensive calculations of social utility efficiency (http://RangeVoting.org/vsi.html). And an interesting side note: David King, of Harvard and the Unity08 project, recently stated his support of Approval Voting and opposition to IRV in an interview.
But while Approval Voting is exceptional for its simplicity, even full-on Range Voting is markedly simpler than IRV. I have personally conducted a Range Voting exit poll in Beaumont, TX. Voters did not find it difficult to use; they promptly rated the 5 gubernatorial candidates 0-10. Seattle’s Madison Market food coop just elected its Inside Trustee in a Range Voting election, and reported no problems. Dartmouth University just used Approval Voting for a significant nomination to its Board of Trustees, at the behest of a professor emeritus of mathematics who told me in a recent phone call that he strongly opposes IRV. The Academic Senate at San Francisco State University uses Approval Voting too, along with several professional organizations (most of them technical/scientific – which makes perfect sense). Range Voting also experimentally reduces spoiled ballots, showing that it is simpler, in some _objective_ ways, than IRV (which massively _increases_ spoilage). Here’s a more thorough look:
http://RangeVoting.org/Complexity.html
You also repeat the common myth that IRV is less “manipulable” than Range Voting or Approval Voting. This is simply false. The simple practical strategy with IRV is simply top-rank your favorite front-runner, causing IRV to degrade almost into plurality voting in practice. This is a simple, undeniable fact (http://rangevoting.org/TarrIrv.html).
But with Range Voting, the optimal strategy is much more complex and difficult (http://rangevoting.org/RVstrat2.html). This presumably reduces the number of voters who will actually have the work ethic to be strategic (http://RangeVoting.org/HonStrat.html). And perhaps more importantly, strategic voting is much less _damaging_ to Range Voting than to IRV. So even if we give IRV a generous “head start”, and assume it will encourage most voters to be honest, and that Range Voting will encourage most voters to be strategic (an assumption which runs counter to all available evidence) Range Voting _still_ out-performs IRV (http://RangeVoting.org/StratHonMix.html). It is interesting to note that the benefit of Range Voting, compared to IRV, actually _doubles_ if the voters go from 100% honest to 100% strategic. So if you believe there are a lot of strategic voters out there, you definitely want Range Voting. Now please do your part to help snuff out this pernicious strategic voting myth.
Regards,
Clay Shentrup
San Francisco, CA
415.240.1973
Comment by Clay Shentrup — June 13, 2007 @ 12:45 am
Shentrup calls “undervotes” in the Board of Supervisors seats “invalid votes.” But there was a higher rate of undervotes in some of San Francisco’s state legislative seats that year held using an “X” voting system. It’s no surprise that a lot of people coming out to vote for president and US senate skip over down ballot rates. Those aren’t “invalid votes.” They’re people voluntarily abstaining. This is typical Shentrup, though — don’t let facts and better informed people (like representatives of smaller parties in Australia, who prefer proportional voting to IRV, but prefer IRV to plurality, range or approval voting) get in the say of missionary zeal.
Shentrup demeans all the charter commission, state League of Women Voters studies and others who have studied different voting methods and invariably chosen instant runoff voting over approval voting. Until he can get SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE to choose his alternatives, he simply is acting as an over-the-top, distorting defender of current transparently defective voting methods.
Comment by Jackson Boyd — June 13, 2007 @ 6:01 am
We have simular in Ireland called Single transferable vote with multi seat constituencies. Works well.
Comment by simon — June 13, 2007 @ 6:01 am
The SF Chronicle ran a column by John Diaz claiming that IRV was responsible for Ed Jew getting elected to the Board of Supes. (For those not following, Jew has been indicted for bribery, and has been unable to prove residency in the district he represents.)
Here’s the link:
http://tinyurl.com/2dzs7e
Personally, I think Diaz is full of bunk. He comes from the same school of thought that opposes district (as opposed to city-wide) elections because progressives get elected.
Comment by Rafi — June 13, 2007 @ 11:18 am
I like IRV because the high frequency of elections is expensive and suppresses voter turnout.
I would love to see a law that says if less than 50% of registered voters vote, the election can’t be certified. If we had that, our counties would make SERIOUS efforts to increase turnout!
Comment by Rafi — June 13, 2007 @ 11:19 am
Jackson Boyd,
Undervotes are those in which a voter expressed no preferences which made it to the final round. This has the same effect as not voting in all in that race, which is why overvotes and undervotes were lumped together. There are certainly some races about which voters care so little that they are subject to a lot of abtaining, no matter which voting method we use. The point is obviously to look at spoilage rates on the whole, and what I said was all correct. This is explained in some detail here: http://rangevoting.org/SPRates.html
It is ironic for you to question my attention to the facts, considering the numerous significant inaccuracies that you have posted here.
1. You implied that people like Bob Kiss refute the duoply effect of IRV. But that is incorrect, because this is a rare example (plurality voting has them too, here in the U.S.), in a city where voters hadn’t even learned how to game IRV yet, because they were new to it.
2. You suggested IRV means “spoiler-free” campaigns. This is demonstrably false, and I pointed this out before you even made the comment. Yet you made it anyway.
* You incorrectly claimed that Approval Voting means your votes “cancel each other out”. This is especially ironic since it is essentially the opposite of the (also flawed) argument that most doubters offer – that Approval Voting gives unfair extra strength to voters, the more candidates they vote for.
* You falsely implied that it is strategic to plurality-vote with Approval Voting, when this is actually the case with _IRV_.
* You claimed, without any citation of empirical data, that Approval Voting degrades to plurality voting. We know this is strategically untrue, but you could have offered some empirical evidence that voters, perhaps because they aren’t good strategists actually do it anyway. But you didn’t.
* You implied that the fact IRV has seen more use in political elections than Approval Voting is evidence that it is better. This is a logical fallacy, for if popularity were an indication of quality, plurality voting would be the world’s best voting method.
* You claimed that Austrailia’s third parties “prefer IRV to plurality, range or approval voting” – but you did not offer a single shred of evidence for this claim. I have actually called them on the phone, and found nothing of the sort to be true. Think about it. If AU third parties are so desperate to get proportional represention in multi-winner races, why would they want IRV in single-winner races, when it clearly leads to two-party duopoly?
So you have made many false statements, and some sketchy statements, apparently just based on your intuition.
Comment by Clay Shentrup — June 13, 2007 @ 11:20 am
Simon – IRV _is_ STV, applied to a single-winner election, with a Droop quota.
Comment by Clay Shentrup — June 13, 2007 @ 11:23 am
Jackson Boyd,
After speaking with Warren D. Smith, the Princeton math Ph.D. who wrote that page on spoilage rates, I find that I misunderstood him. I thought that the undervote rates were crucial to his argument. They are not. He even explains that on the page I linked to.
Notice that the rates of _overvotes_ (“real” spoiled ballots) are 0.60%. That seems low, but it’s more than 1 out of every 200. And it’s much greater than with plurality. But as I mentioned, Range Voting _decreases_ spoiled ballots, as well as the damage caused by them (mis-marking one candidate needn’t affect any other candidates in the same race).
So I’ll hope you’ll join the Range Voting movement soon, and help us save the world.
Regards,
Clay
Comment by Clay Shentrup — June 13, 2007 @ 2:37 pm
I’m into reform, Clay, not Messiahs. Instant runoff voting is a really good reform. Nothing you’ve said changes my mind on that.
Comment by Jackson Boyd — June 13, 2007 @ 4:20 pm
Jackson Boyd:
What is it about IRV that you think makes it a “good reform”? Especially in light of the massive improvement we’d get by using Approval Voting instead?
Also, we’ve updated two of our pages to make them more clear. Very interesting stuff, especially the recent French Range Voting study.
http://RangeVoting.org/OrsayTable.html
http://RangeVoting.org/SPRates.html
Regards,
Clay
415.240.1973 (don’t hesitate to call me)
Comment by Clay Shentrup — June 13, 2007 @ 5:00 pm
I am more inclined to believe Clay’s point of view, because he has proven by mathematical example that IRV does not work the way its advocates claim.
And by that same proof, Dave’s claim that Range Voting advocates are “just plain unrealistic” is disproved. If anything, the use of math to prove their point makes them considerably more realistic than the IRV advocates, who have offered little more than rhetorical arguments.
Of course, being the public transportation advocate that I am, I have to answer the question Clay asks: “Why do so many IRV supporters refuse to listen to the facts?” with a parallel question: “Why does the Bus Riders Union still claim rail construction funds can be moved to operations, when it has been explained ad nauseum that they legally can’t?”
The answer to both is that zealots, once convinced their rhetoric is actually fact, cannot be dissuaded by the real facts.
Comment by Kymberleigh Richards — June 14, 2007 @ 5:41 pm
Kymberleigh,
There’s a difference between the appearance of mathematical proof, and the reality. The same is true of conceptual clarity, historical accuracy and respect for the facts. Clay Shentrup’s monologues are contain too much appearance and not enough reality.
Voting methods scholar and UCSD prof. Matthew Shugart has this to say about range voting:
Who are the zealots here?
Comment by Bob Richard — June 14, 2007 @ 6:42 pm
Bob Richard,
You incorrectly claim that reality does not match the appearance of truth in my claims. Every claim I’ve made is accurate and verifiable, but you yourself incorrectly claimed that IRV is free of the threat of vote splitting. I have addressed several similar misconceptions from other IRV advocates here as well. These common myths help explain why voting reformers have unfortunately chosen to support IRV instead of Approval Voting. But there’s no reason that we can’t change this with a public education campaign. You can help, by realizing how you came to the mistaken belief that IRV eliminates vote splitting, and working to better educate your fellow citizens.
Shugart says he searched for scholarly articles on Range Voting to no avail, but Google tells me that Stephen H. Unger, a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Columbia University, supports Range Voting. And RangeVoting.org was created in 2005 by a Princeton math Ph.D., and contains a profusion of scholarly scrutiny. If you think Warren D. Smith and the other contributers are not objective, then please demonstrate faults in their analysis. Anyone is free to provide scientific scrutiny of their arguments, and judge them on their merits (you don’t need to be a professional scientist or work for a university to practice science). Instead Shugart chooses to make the fallacy of arguing from popularity, instead of addressing the evidence. That is a surprising and disappointing thing for an academic to do. He also ignores that Approval Voting is a form of Range Voting, and has been advocated by numerous credentialed mathematicians.
The question isn’t “who are the zealouts?” – the issue is who is right. So far, all available evidence says we are.
Comment by Clay Shentrup — June 14, 2007 @ 9:28 pm
Bob Richard,
I read the piece you linked to at Fruits and Votes. In it, Matthew Shugart shows himself to be an election methods novice, apparently comparable in knowledge with those who have been studying election methods for a month or so. I correct his numerous misunderstandings here.
Comment by Clay Shentrup — June 14, 2007 @ 11:03 pm
We in ireland have STV-PR porportional representation. Which is very popular and good. (Green Party are part of the new coalition government siel by the way)
Bascially it is multi-seat constuencies. Where you rank your candidates in order of preference. A Quota is set which is the the valid poll /seats.
When a candidate get elected their surples over the quota is distributed to the second ranked persons on the ballot.
If no one gets quota bottom person eliminated. and their second preferances reistributed.
The reason for PR was basically so that the protestant minority in the South would not be out voted by the catholic majority. They do it in the North of Ireland for same reason.
It produces pretty much the same amount of seats in the parliament as party support.
Not entirely sure how it differs from what you oppose above.
Comment by simon — June 15, 2007 @ 9:51 am
IRV Gets a Boost! Results of 6/13/07 L.A. Rules and
Elections Committee meeting
Lynne Serpe, as the rep. from the New America
Foundation, gave an excellent report on IRV to the
committee and fielded Mr. Alarcon’s questions
beautifully. Her report follows. I have added some
observations below.
Linda Piera-Avila
_________________________________________________________________
From: Lynne Serpe
Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2007 5:14 PM
Subject: Update: IRV in Daily News, Results of
yesterday’s Rules &
Elections Committee
Hello everyone,
Thank you to everyone who attended yesterday’s Rules &
Elections Committee meeting and/or sent in a letter.
The support
for IRV was abundantly clear!
-Councilmember Jose Huizar and Councilmember Bill
Rosendahl came to the Rules Committee to speak in
favor of IRV.
-Councilmember Wendy Gruel sent a staffer who read a
letter on a range of topics, including her support for
IRV.
-Representatives from the African American Voter
Registration Project,
Asian Pacific American Legal Center, Asian American
Action Fund, Common Cause, FairVote, LA VoteFIRE,
League of Women Voters, and the Southwest Voter
Registration Education Project all spoke in favor, as
did several community members, neighborhood council
members, and poll workers.
-I submitted letters of support from the San Fernando
Valley Young Democrats, California PIRG, Anthony
Thigpenn from
Scope LA and the Los Angeles Community College
District resolution on instant runoff voting.
- CM Garcetti’s office told me they received a large
number of emails as well.
As far as the three-member Rules Committee:
Councilmember Eric Garcetti made his support known.
Councilmember Zine made some very positive statements.
Councilmember Alarcon asked a number of questions and
is not yet convinced of the benefits of IRV. There was
no vote on the Huizar-Garcetti motion (nor any of the
other four motions on the agenda). Instead, as
recommended in Clerk Frank Martinez’ post-election
report:
http://cityclerk.lacity.org/election/2007%20Municipal%20Elections%20Afte
r%20Action%20Rpt.pdf he will be reporting back in
December on a range of topics, including instant
runoff voting.
______________________________________________________________
Linda’s observations:
Steven Hill spoke about San Francisco’s experience
with IRV and he offered assistance when/if LA adopts
the system.
Mike Feinstein spoke about how Santa Monica is
exploring the possibilty of using IRV. I also said a
few words. Ceil Sorensen attended in support.
A few years ago the League of Women Voters did not
support IRV. Now they do. I see this as a very
positive shift.
Mr. Alarcon’s objections centered around two points:
1) would IRV adversely affect minority community
voters?
2) runoff campaigns allow more time for voters to
gather information about the two final candidates,
including sometimes “necessary” negative information.
Now back to Lynne’s email:
_________________________________________________________________
THINGS YOU CAN DO:
1. Write a letter to the Los Angeles Daily News. They
had an article in
today’s paper (below): “Los Angeles may vote for
change: Instant
runoffs, new dates some proposals for combating low
turnout.” Letters
should be no more than 100 words and emailed to:
dnforum at dailynews.com
2. Write a letter to your Council member, mentioning
your support for
IRV and definitely mention that you live in his/her
district!
3. Contact your Neighborhood Council, asking if they
would be willing
to either: have me (or one of my interns) come speak
about IRV, or pass a resolution in favor of IRV if
they have already had a presentation.
You can find out which neighborhood council you live
in at:
http://www.lacityneighborhoods.com/page2.cfm?doc=home
Thank you,
Lynne Serpe
Deputy Director, Political Reform Program, New America
Foundation
213-480-0994 http://www.newamerica.net/politicalreform
***************
Los Angeles may vote for change
Instant runoffs, new dates some proposals for
combating low turnout
by Kerry Cavanaugh, Staff Writer, Los Angeles Daily
News, 06/13/2007
________________________________
To entice Angelenos back to the polls after record-low
turnouts in
recent years, the city is mulling a host of changes,
including new
election dates, more mail-in voting and instant runoff
voting.
In this year’s elections, 10 percent of registered
voters participated
in the March primary and 7 percent turned out for the
May general
election.
The reason?
In a hearing Wednesday, voter education groups cited
voter fatigue from too many elections, complicated
initiatives, language barriers,
negative campaigning, lack of interest in local races
and a growing belief that voting doesn’t matter.
“We really need to bring back what the importance is
of local
elections,” said Jimmy Valentine with the African
American Voter
Registration, Education and Participation Program.
“Your council
members, your school board members, those are the ones
that figure in your daily lives in your community.”
One proposal to increase voter turnout – or at least
reduce voter
fatigue – is instant runoff voting. The system, now
used in San
Francisco, allows voters to rank the candidates in
order of preference.
To determine the winner, officials tally first-choice
candidates. If a
candidate has a majority, he or she wins. If there is
no majority, the
last place candidate is eliminated and ballots that
listed the
candidate as the first choice are recounted using the
second choice. That elimination and recount process is
continued until a candidate gets a majority of votes.
Supporters said instant runoff voting would be cheaper
since there’s
only one election and it could increase participation,
since the number
of voters tends to decrease in local elections between
the primary and
final election.
Councilman Jose Huizar said he began pushing instant
runoff voting
after the last election when he went to vote for the
community college board trustee runoff, and was told
only two other people (beside him and his wife) had
voted.
“I asked myself, wasn’t I just here a few months ago
to vote for this
person?” Huizar said.
So far the proposal has support from Mayor Antonio
Villaraigosa and
several City Council members, but it’s still in the
discussion phase
and would require changing the city charter and
election code.
[Lynne's Note: The Daily News edited Kerry Cavanaugh's
article
incorrectly: the Mayor actually submitted a letter in
support of a
vote-by-mail/extended early voting proposal. He did
not weigh in on
IRV.]
http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_6135443
Comment by Lisa — June 15, 2007 @ 10:16 am
Simon,
What we’re calling “instant runoff voting” (IRV) in this discussion is the special case of STV-PR where you are filling only one seat at a time. In Ireland you would probably call it the “alternative vote”, which is how it is known in the U.K., Australia and elsewhere.
The U.S. has many elected executive officials, and also single-member districts for most legislative bodies. The alternative vote/IRV (or — if you’re willing to believe Clay Shentrup — range voting, etc.) is very important here because so many elections are to fill one seat.
Hope this helps,
Bob
Comment by Bob Richard — June 15, 2007 @ 10:28 am
In #21 above, I quote political scientist Matthew Shugart: “A search of the academic articles data bases in political science, economics, mathematics, and computer science turns up exactly zero articles on range voting.”
Update: range voting is discussed in the academic literature here: Nicolaus Tideman, Collective Decisions and Voting: The Potential for Public Choice (Ashgate Publishing, 2006): pp. 174-176 and 236-238. For what it’s worth, Tideman rates range voting “unsupportable” (his word), and rates IRV best among the methods that do not require heavy-duty algebra.
By all means, folks should check out range voting. While they’re at it, they should study up on the Condorcet principle, Borda Count, Arrow’s (im)possibility theorem, Smith Sets, and lots more esoterica. A semester or two of welfare economics would be nice; set theory is a prerequisite. It’s a great intellectual passtime.
At the end of your studies, come back to Clay Shentrup’s arguments (which you will find all over the blogosphere) and decide whether they actually make any sense.
While you’re away at school, folks promoting a very good reform (not perfect, but better than the feasible alternatives) will be making headway in the real world.
Comment by Bob Richard — June 15, 2007 @ 6:05 pm
Bob Richard,
Tideman’s opinion is noted, but in order to scrutinize it we need to see his evidence – which you do not provide. I have heard a few of his arguments, and they are rather flimsy.
I think it’s great that you advise people to learn the esoterica of voting methods, I but wish that you would follow this advise. Remember, you started off the conversation with the false claim that IRV is free from vote splitting. And now you say that IRV is better than feasible alternatives, when Approval Voting is much more simple and feasible for a variety of reasons, and picks better winners. In light of the numerous problems intrinsic to IRV, it is not a good voting method, and not a good choice for those who want better democracy.
Comment by Clay Shentrup — June 15, 2007 @ 8:31 pm
Bob Richard,
Aussies call it “preferential voting” actually.
Comment by Clay Shentrup — June 15, 2007 @ 8:35 pm