From time to time I get emails from people requesting me to write a piece on a thing. I am happy to do so because given enough material, I would write day and night like I am running out of time. Send me an email to rollo75@yahoo.com.au and I might write a piece for you; including if your suggestion is silly.
This week, I have been asked (rather rudely via email) to try and justify why Instant-Run-Off Voting (IRV) is in my opinion a better voting system than the writer's preferred system of Star Voting and Score Voting. Firstly, we need a brief description of the two voting systems.
Instant-Run-Off Voting is where the voter ranks all their choices 1, 2, 3, 4 et cetera, and when the votes are tallied, the candidate with the lowest number of votes is eliminated, and their votes are then distributed according to the next choice of the voter. In principle Instant-Run-Off Voting asks what would you like? And then if you can't have that, then what would you like? And it keeps on asking that question until at least 50%+1 of the votes are for one candidate, who wins.
In Star Voting and Score Voting systems, voters are asked to indicate their relative approval to various candidates by rating them relative to each other. If we assume that we can award 1-5 stars to whom the voter thinks is the best candidate, then they will award 5 stars to whom they think is the best and 0 stars to whom they think is the worst. These systems then either take a tally of average of the various scores and do maths to arrive at a winner.
The argument in favour of these systems is that they indicate the relative approval of the electorate for the various candidates and this satisfies a bunch of criteria which are nominally good at determining what people like. I will agree that Star Voting and Score Voting are good achieving these ends but that IRV demonstrates one thing better - hate.
The writer in their email who wishes to be anonymous, argues that IRV can lead to insincere voting where voters will preference a candidate whom they perceive will lose, even when they know that their preferred candidate will survive later, for the sole purposes of knocking out their more hated candidate. The writer asserts that tactical voting is a bad thing because it distorts the results because of push-over voting tactics. Again, I will agree that this absolutely happens and will readily admit that I will do this and have done this in the past; precisely because IRV demonstrates one thing better - hate.
I have now mentioned hate twice as a feature and motive of IRV as though I was some kind of Sith Lord. In the words of my late mother "you shouldn't hate something unless you want it dead"; in the world of politics, wanting a campaign and even a political party to die and remain dead forever, are I think perfectly valid motives. IRV expresses that hate in the most excellent way and does so empirically.
Unlike voting for where people want to go for dinner where the outcome doesn't really matter if all of the choices are okay, politics is full of policies which different people think are excellent through to vile. Also unlike voting for where people want to go for dinner, the consequences are such that an elected candidate gets the job of being in power for many years at a time. Asking for the mere approval of the electorate isn't actually good enough. In a single-member district, where there is only one winner, then the voter is actively being asked to make a choice where the outcome is explicitly exclusionary. IRV actually forces the voter to make an explicitly exclusionary choice.
Push-over voting, where a voter preferences a candidate whom they perceive will lose, even when they know that their preferred candidate will survive later, for the sole purposes of knocking out their more hated candidate, is itself a deliberate action. The ballot box is itself a game of not only trying to get whom you want to win, to win, but also of to get whom you want to lose, to lose; and in some cases to never ever come back. If there are ten candidates rating from all-right, to okay, to meh, to cuss cuss cuss, then marking "10" in that last box for the cuss cuss cuss candidate not only expresses hate through the ballot box but is actually also quite cathartic.
Single-Member districts are themselves subject to Duverger's Law which says that in the long run a political system will tend towards two-party politics or two pelotons. This is because there are only two end outcomes in the game - win and lose. In the long run, teams generally form to knock the other out; this already front loads the electorate. If there are two groups who like/hate Allan Albertson and Betty Bingle, then sincerely voting for Carol Cox, Dave Digby, and Ektar the Exterminator ahead of the others, is I think a perfectly valid way of expressing hate at the ballot box. Voting CEDAB if you hate B is valid. Voting ADECB if you love A and hate B is also valid.
Instant-Run-Off Voting and especially voting 1 for someone's first preference, as an exclusionary choice. This is perfect when the result itself is exclusionary because there can only be one winner in a single member district. In Star Voting and Score Voting systems, voters are only asked for their approval and not their abject hate. Star Voting and Score Voting systems can lead to electing someone whom some of the electorate may tolerate but they can not deal with abject hate because 0 stars is not a disrete unit.
Someone much smarter than I suggested that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. Star Voting and Score Voting systems can deal with approval but they are unable to determine a withholding of consent or a refusal to give consent. Instant-Run-Off Voting by its nature, which forces voters to make an empirical distinction between their preferences of candidates, explicitly tells you who they hate because that person will be last.
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