You’re right, thanks for the correction.
Yes, I definitely spoke shortly; every system has its faults, it is simply a matter of which faults we’re willing to live with. 
We had a thread about election methods a little while ago, where some other posters and I made a pretty good argument for using the Condorcet method instead of IRV.
The fact is that with Instant Runoff Voting, ranking your favorite candidate higher can hurt his chances of winning, and ranking your least favorite candidate lower can help him win, and you can’t really predict when it will help and when it will hurt.
It really is a shame that when people think of alternate voting systems intended to help third parties, the first one that comes to mind is IRV, because the Condorcet method gives much more sensible results and is just as easy for voters to use.
Read the text of “Theorem 2”.
Sure, you can vote strategically in IRV / preferential elections. You can do that under many election systems.
However, most people don’t vote strategically. They put the person they like the most first, and work down from there. The various people voting strategically for various parties is a small number and tends to have a smaller effect as people’s various strategies and various party preferences cancel each other out.
Anyway, what’s wrong with strategic voting?
The problem is with systems that force you to vote strategically, because they are so flawed that voting your true preferences leads to a worse result than intentionally voting against your true preferences. With IRV, you never really know whether voting your true preferences will help or hurt the candidates you prefer.
Precisely. It is a strange system that creates the possibility that a genuine vote is worse than a lie. Even strategically countering the spoiler effect doesn’t have that as you compromise during the vote, knowing that your candidate doesn’t have the support in the first place.
BrainGlutton, strategic voting is, I think, intelligent voting. This is why I consistently argue against voting for third parties, except when it is in my favor to encourage someone else to (republicans: vote libertarian! :D). But if we are going to switch voting systems, I think we should try to make a choice that minimizes “strangeness” in strategic voting, such as the problem where voting for your favorite candidate hurts that candidate’s potential to win. In FPTP, if I vote for a third party, the worst that happens is my second or third preference candidate loses my potential vote. In approval voting (unlikely to ever really gain support, I think), if I vote for any candidate, it is always in my best interest to vote for every candidate I strictly prefer to that candidate.
However, that said, I would still vastly prefer IRV to FPTP. Vastly. My quibbles are but suction cup darts.
I say adopt the Klingon system and have the candidates fight to the death.
In this election, Kerry would take it in a walk!
Harper, Martin and Layton in a three way death match. Hell, if we sold tickets it would pay for the election.
If you’re interested in this thread, you might want to check out another thread I just started: “Yet another electoral-system reform: “ballot fusion,” or “cross-endorsement”” – http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=262650
“Fusion” means running one candidate as the nominee of more than one party. Simple idea, but you might be surprised to learn that this is illegal in most American states, and has been since the 1890s, when the practice was banned for the express (and successful) purpose of smothering the third parties that existed at the time.
Here’s a couple more thoughts, which I’ve articulated in related threads, vis-a-vis the relative merits of a two-party vs. a multiparty system.
First, a multiparty system, based on PR, IRV and ballot fusion, offers a suprising advantage: Stability.
That might sound counterintuitive – won’t PR lead to the two big parties breaking up, new ones forming, shifting alliances, massive political instability and unpredictability?
Yes, in the short term. But consider: Each political grouping has a limited “target market,” a limited number of voters who sympathize with it and might be persuaded to support it. After a few years under PR, each party will have achieved total “market saturation,” recruited pretty much all of its potential support base. And after that point, there will be no more “electoral revolutions” --change will be slow and incremental. Elections will be a matter of a given party gaining or losing just a few percentage points of support. In each party, there will be a solid core of committed supporters, and a fringe of not-so-commited supporters who might go one way or another – e.g., if there is a large Libertarian Party, distinct from a purely business-oriented Republican Party, then there will be a few “swing voters” between them who might, in any given election, go Libertarian or Republican – but never, ever, Green or Socialist.
By contrast, in our present system the only “swing voters” are those hovering about the country’s ideological center-of-gravity. And they have influence far out of proportion to their numbers – which leads to instability. In 1994 we had an electoral “revolution,” putting Republicans in control of both houses of Congress --even though the aggregate national Republican vote exceeded the Democratic vote by less than one-half of one percent. That makes the balance of power unstable and unpredictable.
Second: Some people are leery of PR because they look at the experience of Israel and Italy, where the multiplicity of parties always makes it necessary, and difficult, to form a stable “coalition government.”
But the “coalition governments” problem only arises in countries that have a parliamentary system, where the legislators must put together a majority to “form a government.” We don’t have that, we have a separation-of-powers system where the president or governor is elected separately and makes his or her own cabinet appointments.
If we had a multiparty political system, I expect legislative “coalitions” would form, but they would be momentary and issue-specific.
E.g., suppose a scenario where the parties represented in Congress are the following:
1. Republican Party – a remnant left after the religious-social conservatives, the libertarians, and the nativistist-isolationist-populists all split off and go their own way. This party would be more purely (and more obviously) the party of established business interests and of agressive foreign-policy neoconservatism. Pro-choice on abortion.
2. America First Party – Pat Buchanan’s new party. It already exists, but if we moved to PR it might find itself augmented by a mass exodus from the Republican Party. Nativist-isolationist-populist, with a solid base in working-class religious people, especially Roman Catholics like Buchanan himself. Socially conservative, against immigration, but also hostile to big business, economic globalization, NAFTA, WTO, and American military adventures abroad. Hostile to the Iraq War, hostile to American support of Israel.
3. Constitution Party – the party of the Religious Right. Already exists, might get bigger. Rooted in Southern Evangelical Protestantism. Agenda would be as it is now – ban abortion, revive school prayer, support vouchers and home schooling, etc. Also would be supportive, for religious reasons, of American support of Israel and military intervention in the Middle East.
4. Libertarian Party – again, still exists, would get bigger. Different from the Republican Party in being pro-market, not pro-business – would deregulate businesses, but also would refuse to bail out foundering corporations or award sweetheart porkbarrel contracts. Also hostile to the national-security state, the military-industrial complex, and foreign military adventuring.
5. Democratic Party – again, a remnant, after several groupings now under the Dem “big tent” go their own way. This party would represent “neoliberalism,” economic globalization, the politics of Clinton and the Democratic Leadership Council. Socially liberal but inclined to ally with the Republicans on business-related issues.
6. Labor Party – a party rooted in working-class people who are more liberal than the America Firsters, but still pretty socially conservative. Centered on the labor unions and devoted to fighting for working-class interests. Would be pro-choice on abortion but with reservations.
7. Green Party – environmentalist, tinged with a concern for “social justice” that differs from most models of socialism in being highly decentralist.
8. Progressive Party – a party for all the real “leftists” in American politics, other than the Greens – communists, socialists, social democrats, radical feminists. Similar to the Labor Party, but different in being more socially liberal. Similar to the Greens, but different in being open to national-level government solutions to problems, and in emphasizing social equality over environmental protection.
9. Independence Party – again, already exists – this and the America First Party are one of two groups that emerged when the Reform Party split. This is the party of John Anderson – and Jesse Ventura, in Minnesota. As with some others, might get bigger if we adopted IRV and PR. It would be “Progressive” in the older, early-20th-century sense of the term – devoted to good government, honest, transparent, vigorous and effective government, but also fiscal responsibility with no deficit spending. Devoted to a technocratic, professional vision of government that purports to transcend ideology, class interests and partisanship – an old Progressive slogan was, “There is no Democratic or Republican way to pave a street.” Would agree with the Libertarians on most social issues.
Now, if we had all these parties in Congress, they might align in different ways on different issues.
E.g., if you introduce legislation to drastically pare down America’s defense spending, the Progressives, the Greens, the Libertarians, and the America First Party all would support it. The Republicans and the Constitution Party would be against it. The Democrats, the Independence Party and the Labor Party might be split.
If you introduced a bill to recognize gay marriage, the Greens, Progressives, Independence Party and Libertarians would be for it. The Constitution Party and the America Firsters would be against it. The Democrats, Republicans, and Labor Party might be split and might push for a compromise solution like “civil unions.”
If you proposed legalizing marijuana, the Republicans might be open to the idea (as presenting new opportunities for the tobacco industry to branch into a new product). The Progressives would require only that the new marijuana industry be properly regulated and taxed. Libertarians, Greens and Independence would support it. The America First and Constitution parties would be against it. Labor might be split.
If you introduced some strict new environmental-protection legislation, the Greens and Progressives would be for it, the Libertarians and the Republicans would be against it, and everybody else would want to carefully study each element of the proposal before making up their minds. E.g., Labor would be environmentalist in principle but they wouldn’t want to do anything that might eliminate jobs.
And so on.
In each case, nothing actually gets done unless a given proposal can muster support from enough different groupings to make up a voting majority.
And if there’s “logrolling” – e.g., the Libertarians agreeing to support Republican proposal X only if the Republicans support decriminalizing pot – what’s wrong with that? We’ve got logrolling now. This change just adds more logs.
While all this is going on, we still have only one president in the White House – a president who probably won on a “fusion” ticket, being the acceptable choice of several different parties who have agreed more or less to work together, at least for this election cycle. Sometimes the president would be a joint choice of the Democrats and Republicans, and would solidly favor globalization and business interests. Sometimes he might be a Labor-America First nominee and always support the interests of the working class. Sometimes he might be an America First-Constitution choice and fight for social conservatism. Or a Green-Progressive-Labor president who would be socially liberal and fight for the working class and environmental protection. But, at any rate, only one president at a time, steering the ship of state in one direction – which direction would be a vector sum, just like now, but involving more vectors than are in play now.
I never thought of this before – but the states can avoid the “spoiler” problem by choosing IRV for their presidential vote! Action at the federal level is not needed! The Constitution mandates the Electoral College, but leaves it up to each state to decide how its electors are to be chosen. Steven Hill and Rob Richie point this out in an article, “De-Spoiling the Election,” in The Nation, July 12, 2004. They point out that in New Mexico, where both the Greens and the Nader campaign have a strong presence, the state legislature, which is controlled by Democrats, could at right now the adopt an IRV system – or even a more conventional two-round runoff system – for the presidential race this fall. And every state with a Democratic-majority legislature could do the same. Why not? It’ll satisfy the Greens and Naderites while boosting Kerry’s chances of winning the White House.
I never thought of this before – but the states can avoid the “spoiler” problem by choosing IRV for their presidential vote! Action at the federal level is not needed! The Constitution mandates the Electoral College, but leaves it up to each state to decide how its electors are to be chosen. Steven Hill and Rob Richie point this out in an article, “De-Spoiling the Election,” in The Nation, July 12, 2004. They point out that in New Mexico, where both the Greens and the Nader campaign have a strong presence, the state legislature, which is controlled by Democrats, could at right now the adopt an IRV system – or even a more conventional two-round runoff system – for the presidential race this fall. And every state with a Democratic-majority legislature could do the same. Why not? It’ll satisfy the Greens and Naderites while boosting Kerry’s chances of winning the White House.