Talk:Instant-runoff voting/archive2

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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents 1 Misc 2 Changes to Example 3 Removed stuff on STV in Canada 3.1 BC-STV Referendum 3.2 Post-Referendum Debate and Aftermath 3.3 Electoral Reform in Other Provinces 4 What now? 5 More changes to examples 6 More NPOVing 7 Singular they 8 Corporate Governance & Civil Society 9 elimination in IRV 10 blog references? 11 Practical implications 11.1 strike approval plug 12 undocumented paragraph removed here 13 Removed text restored here 14 Similar systems 14.1 Runoff-voting 14.2 Contingent vote 15 Tactical voting and strategic nomination 16 Effect on parties and candidates 17 Condorcet vs. IRV 18 Problems 19 Tie breaking rule 20 This page is now protected 20.1 Discussion 21 Article badly needs a criticism section 21.1 Pros and Cons 22 Article pruning 23 Ka-Ping Yee's leaflet 24 Tactical Voting Section, removing POV and misleading citation 25 Evaluation by criteria section 26 US Centric 26.1 Arrow's theorem and equal rankings 27 Robert's Rules of Order in Introductory Section 28 Spate of reverts contrary to 3RR and consensus 29 Con argument removed by BenB4 30 Continuing problem with Introduction, Robert's Rules 31 Counting the Votes 32 POV tag 33 Editors of this article since Sept 1 34 Explanation for use of multiple reverts. 35 edit, again, Robert's Rules mention and remove Arrow's theorem mention. 36 Removal of allegation re Condorcet Winner and runoff methods. 37 How the article came to be protected and socks and meat puppet blocked 37.1 User:Abd reported by User:P-j-t-a (Result: Semi-prot., indef blocked P-j-t-a (and others)) 37.2 Does motive matter? 37.2.1 On getting to a compromise 38 Settling What Robert's Rules of Order Means 39 Pro and Con Bullet Section 40 Discuss specific Con argument re comparison of IRV with another simple possible reform. 40.1 The characteristic problem 40.2 United States 41 Getting this to featured status 42 Avoiding getting accused of a plug 43 RONR: Robert's Rules of Order, Newly Revised 44 Difficult to understand 45 Spoiler/vote splitting 46 More images 47 Comment on POV tag removal

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 Wikipedia 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 [voting systems are those in which a voter either votes or does not vote for a given candidate] 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 Wikipedia 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)

The 2 examples now have truncated ballots due to recent edit to re-add the truncation example. It should either be 1 with no truncation (to give a basic example) and 1 with trunction (to give a slightly more complex example) or just 1 example that includes truncation. Given the number of places that 'majority' is asserted in the article, having a truncation example helps clarify the issue.

--Ivnryn 09:08, 1 October 2007 (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 Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia judge validity of such web sources?

It would seem to me that if something would be considered original research to be included in Wikipedia, 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. ^{[citation needed]}

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)[1] 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^[1].

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 Wikipedia?

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 Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia.

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 Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia 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 [I need to make sure I have this right]
• "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^B4 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^B4 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^B4 16:05, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

RESPONSE: Have you studied ALL of the costs of running an IRV election? Did you include the cost that SF spends on Voter education? I found a media reference for $1.87 per registered voter, and the city held hundreds of public education events in a year.

I personally phoned David Lee, head of CAVEC, the Chinese Voter Education Committee in San Francisco, and he said that IRV placed a big burden on voter advocacy groups such as his. I didn't ask him for a figure.

Additionally, there was the exit poll survey of the 2004 SF election, that was paid for by CAVEC.

There is also the cost of the software for the voting machines. That was at least $ 1 million.

Now the machines are decertified and will have to be replaced eventually.

Did you read the article about how SF's mayor is attacking the City Supervisors (in the media) for not purchasing the expensive and untrustworthy Sequoia touch-screen machines for $12+ million? And the vendor only promises IRV software, it is vaporware right now.

Do you know the costs to do a recount of an IRV election?

Or the cost to audit an IRV election?

Do you know what it will cost San Francisco to hand count the upcoming municipal election, since the machines are decertified?

Do you know the cost to print ballots for an IRV election in San Francisco? Does it double the cost of ballot printing, and how many ballots will be printed, at what cost?

Its like getting a "free" pony, you have to spend money somewhere, the pony isn't free. Without proof of the need for a runoff election every single election compared to all of the costs of running an IRV election, (all costs) this claim that IRV saves money is not correct.

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 Wikipedia. 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^B4 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^B4 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^B4 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)

[2] 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^B4 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 Wikipedia 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^B4 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^B4 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 Wikipedia 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^B4 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.: "[T]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"[3] 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^B4 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^B4 14:22, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I checked the voting examples in Ka-Ping Yee's leaflet. They are all mathematically correct. It claims Approval Voting is easier to count and easier to explain than Instant Runoff Voting. Should be self-evident. It "overstates the complexity required to describe IRV instructions"? It uses a quote from the center of IRV propaganda fairvote.org for crying out loud! This leaflet publication is as professional as leaflet publishing gets. If I got 1 penny for ever time I read a claim by IRV supporters that is mathematically incorrect like with IRV all voters could "vote for their favorite candidate without" the risk of electing their least liked I would have... 8 pennies now[4]. --R.H. 01:48, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

No matter how true you think it is, it is self-published, so it is not considered a reliable source; see WP:SPS. As for the complexity of the instructions, normally voters are told how to mark their ballots, "Rank as many choices as you like, 1 for your first choice, 2 for your second, etc.," without explaining exactly how the ballots are counted. And it doesn't fully do that, omitting ties. Acct4 02:53, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Acct4 is a sock puppet for BenB4, who was the second sock for a banned user. "Acct4" apparently refers to this as being his fourth account. (Take a look at the contribution history of the two users, it's blatant, but you can see it right here in IRVer city). The previous three were banned. (BenB4 is history.) My point here is not that BenB4 or Acct4 are wrong, they are entitled to his opinion, but that he does not represent a consensus of the editors, nor is he relevant to a consensus, because he is not a legitimate editor. As to Yee diagrams, they are widely known and accepted in the election methods community, and lots of people produce them. That something is self-published does not automatically make it unusable, but it sets a higher bar. At this point I'm not willing to assert that Yee diagrams should be in the article, but ... we should be working on it. It's quite possible that the topic of Yee diagrams could be placed elsewhere, for they are a method of comparing election methods. BenB4/Acct4 and his two previous incarnations believe firmly in WP:IAR, Ignore All Rules, but ... that only applies to himself. Apparently everyone else is expected to follow whatever rule he alleges applies. No, what IAR means is indeed subtle and powerful. See WP:WAIRM. It's about our consensus.

BenB4 or Acct4, we can see here or elsewhere, liked the article the way it was, with pro-IRV material worded exactly the way it was desired, to create the impressions on readers desired. Look at his recent edits, and his discussions here in Talk. Somebody puts something in, he takes it out, gives a reason. They put it back in, addressing that issue. He takes it out, gives another reason. He's got reasons lined up in a queue. The *real* reason? He wants to preserve pro-IRV propaganda, some of which is quite subtle, and he wants to keep out anything that lessens the impact of this propaganda. His goal is most certainly not an NPOV article. Fortunately, Wikipedia administration is wise to him. It may take a little time for them to figure out that Acct4 is BenB4, but ... probably not very long, and the more he edits here, the more attention will be called to his true identity. It's not rocket science if a relatively clueless user like me can figure it out.

Frankly, folks, if you support Instant Runoff Voting, intervene here for truth, justice, and the Wikipedia way. Because we need you; that is, we need editors who understand the importance of neutral point of view, who will do the work it takes to find consensus that includes all legitimate points of view. My goal is not to attack Instant Runoff Voting, far from it. It is to remove propaganda that prevents people from understanding the truth about it. IRV is appropriate for some situations. Maybe. At least it is a reasonable assertion! To understand when it is appropriate and when it is not, we must understand it clearly, free of carefully-designed propaganda crafted to lead us to certain conclusions. If IRV advocacy is represented here by sock puppets and anonymous abusive reverters, doesn't it look bad? I *am* involved in advocacy of other methods, in fact, most notably the method that we call Count All the Votes. (it's that simple!), and the conduct of IRV advocates on this page can and will be used against IRV. It's politics! I did not desire to provoke the really bad behavior seen here over the last week, but ... they chose to provide us with these opportunities. In any case, the article is getting better, and the intensity with which the sock puppets clung to very specific wording tells us a great deal....

Editing this article, I see that the user page for Acct4 has been deleted at his request, which is why his links show up as broken. Ah, what a tangled web we weave.... doesn't he know that revision histories is kept? You just have to know where to look, and I'm learning. What a fascinating place this is! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abd (talk • contribs) 04:59, 1 October 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^B4 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 Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia 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)

I added reference to the Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem for greater precision (as Arrow deals with order of a group preference from individual preferences, and G-S deals with a single majority winner from individual preferences). Fortunately there was already a Wikipedia article on G-S theorem to link to.

As for the notion that cardinal voting methods are immune... that notion is not widely agreed to. Instead it is widely agreed, as summarized by Nicolaus Tideman in "Collective Decisions And Voting: The Potential for Public Choice" (though Warren Smith disputes this) that individual utility functions have only ordinal and not cardinal significance. That is, individuals are not able to meaningfully communicate their utility for options as cardinal numbers. This is especially true with Range voting as there is no common scale among voters.

Tbouricius 15:27, 3 October 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^B4 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^B4 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 Wikipedia article is used as a primary source by many people, in real political controversies, with possibly major consequences, and so information in Wikipedia 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:[A=1, B=1, C=2], can be replaced by two purely ranked ballots: 1/2:[A=1, B=2, C=3], and 1/2:[B=1, A=2, C=3]. (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 [10th ed.], 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. [this was incorrect, I may have abandoned an edit. It is now out.] 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)

The fact is that the "preferential voting" described as an example in Robert's Rules does require a majority of absolute votes cast. This is defined as the number of ballots containing a valid vote. Thus exhausted ballots remain in the count. Roberts Rules is quite explicit about the necessity of this, elsewhere. RR does not consider, by default, any action valid unless a majority of those voting have approved it, and, in supplemental material by parliamentarians, the number of those voting is clearly defined as those who cast any valid vote. Spoiled ballots, blank ballots, are not included. But this is irrelevant to the issue here. The method described in RR, as quoted by FairVote, explicitly includes all ballots with valid votes, not just those which are not exhausted. You may not like it, but that is what they recommend. If I've made an error, please point it out.

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

Yes. I cited it above.... and it points to the FairVote page with the relevant material from Robert's Rules.

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 Wikipedia suggested rules, and, folks, there are some active people here who apparently don't understand them. That's fine.... but I'm taking out the RR reference for now. The writer above did a whole series of reverts on my edits, apparently without even reading them, giving the reason that I was a proponent of other systems. Which is no reason at all, and, in fact, reveals bias. If I make mistakes, please correct them. If I inadvertently put in POV material, or inappropriate material, or, indeed, anything legitimately controversial, please remove it.

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. Further, 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, if left in as it was, likely to be taken as an endorsement of something that is not being endorsed, and that the recommendation of "preference voting" for mail-in ballots 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. taking it out. Abd 00:18, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

(above revised Abd 01:36, 28 September 2007 (UTC) )

Spate of reverts contrary to 3RR and consensus

[Three_revert_rule]

A series of six reverts from IP 72.75.46.82 were made to the IRV article, contrary to 3RR. The reason given for the reverts was that the editor reverted was "Avid proponent of other systems trying to change article." This is not a legitimate reason for a reversion. Opponents and proponents or sideways glancers are free to edit articles. The issue is whether or not material added or taken out is in accordance with Wikipedia policy and the consensus of the editors.

The editors of any article on a controversial subject should include people with varied opinions, including proponents and critics. The basic idea of Wikipedia is to seek a consensus on an NPOV presentation of the material. Those who don't understand this should follow the About Wikipedia link on the left... The rules have been greatly improved since I last looked.

The reverts were unsigned, itself offensive. In at least one case, the anonymous editor re-edited the reverted material to restore essentially the same change. I haven't yet looked in detail, but clearly the reverts were being done because of who the editor was, rather than the content of the edits.

I could ask for immediate arbitration. However, I may take the risk of myself making more than three reverts in 24 hours, but only to restore material restored to the article without discussion or any consensus, contrary to 3RR. I would welcome arbitration if anyone else would like to ask for it, and I will ask for it myself if this situation continues.

As it happened, I did not need to do more than three reverts, some of what was reverted improperly was not all that important. I'm not going to risk being banned for restoring a correction of an obvious mispelling.... Someone else can do that! And, indeed, I'm trying to attract some others interested in election methods to participate here, including experts who do *not* agree with me. I really do believe in finding genuine consensus!

I was warned that if I tried to remove POV material from the IRV article, it would start an edit war. It took a few days.... Abd 00:43, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I want nothing to do with this fight, although I do have opinions, I'll will see if I can take Mr. Happy drug and stay away! Tom Ruen 01:53, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

WP:3RR says, "Note that consecutive reverts by one editor are often treated as one revert for the purposes of this rule." Acct4 19:42, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Sure. Under what conditions? They aren't explained. If this situation falls into that category, then what does 3RR ban? 3RR is pretty explicit, it is exactly what was going on here, and the only excuse would be that the user was new. Was the user new? How would we know? The user was not signing the edits -- highly discouraged. The user was not discussing the edits -- highly discouraged. The user was not seeking to express a consensus or acting to find one -- discouraged. The user was simply taking a quick and easy method to get rid of a series of edit by someone based *solely* -- originally -- on the claim that the editor was a "proponent of other methods." It's blatant, Acct4, so I ask: do you think the reverts were justified and proper, and what made them so? Can I legitimately use the same technique to deal with edits I don't like? It would certainly make things easier!

Now, here came more talk from a new user not explicitly related to 3RR. I'm moving it to keep it classified under a proper heading. Abd 03:45, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, I am not sure about the conditions, but I gather it may be a gray area the administrators keep open so that they can punish both the person who reports the 3RR violation as well as the violator when the two have clearly been edit waring. Again, I'm not positive about this, but I have seen both a reporter and a violator blocked. Acct4 04:45, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, Acct4 knows quite a bit about 3RR. He's a sock puppet for BenB4, who was a sockpuppet for a user banned quite some time ago. Acct4 popped up two days before BenB4 was banned, and continued the cause of BenB4. The user page for Acct4 was removed at Acct4's request, but ... you can still see the edit history for Acct4. It's utterly unmistakeable, Acct4 is BenB4. As to the substance here, yes, Acct4 was correct, both reporter and violator have been blocked. Such blocks, normally, are short, You really have to work hard to get banned indefinitely as BenB4 was.... I have no doubt that there are administrators who make poor judgements, it goes with the territory and I've seen it myself. But Wikipedia is about the long term, it is about community and consensus. BenB4 should know why there is flexibility in interpretation: it's part of WP:IAR, his favorite rule. Wikipedia is not about rigid rules. But, with time, the guidelines that exist get clearer and exceptions become more rare.... I agree with 3RR, it's a good rule. BenB4 strongly disliked it.

It's all there, anyone can see it. When you look at a History for an article, you see the user listed, and there is a Contributions link. This shows all edits by the user, forever. It even shows edits for a user whose user page has been deleted, like that of Acct4 (at his request). They warn us: what we do here is recorded.... and, indeed, it is, and Wikipedia, to the maximum extent possible, is open to all users. Only administrators can get access to raw IP data, but sometimes a user reveals it. For example, Acct4 requested his user page be deleted. Why would he do that? Well, perhaps he realizes that someone might try to find out who he is. However, he neglected to do it while logged in. So admin responded to him on his Talk page, which is normal. And, since he had made the request anonymously, the administrator noted the IP from which the request was made on Talk, asking him to log in and confirm it was him. That he apparently did, then he went to his Talk page and edited out the IP address. But this is recorded in History. And, further, if you look at Contribs for a user, it shows all edits, and, of course, he explained his edit nicely in the Edit summary as wanting to get rid of his IP address, thus acknowledging that it was his. It could be useful. If admin does not block that IP, and he edits anonymously, he could be identified. They monitor that kind of stuff, sometimes.... but it's spotty, so, thanks to Acct4, we can support the administration by watching for it.... Some people, indeed, should get a life.

Con argument removed by BenB4

BenB4 removed, previously, a series of arguments posted by another editor here, based on lack of sourcing. However, some of what he removed was sourced. This was an example, which I placed, anew, in the Con section:

• Does not reduce negative campaigning. Instant Runoff Voting Not Meeting Expectations

BenB4 has removed this, claiming: "(rv: firstly, the source doesn't say whether that negative campaigning was "reduced" or not, but more importantly blogs are not WP:RS reliable sources because they are WP:SPS self-published)"

This was in the Con section, where it is enough, properly, to show than an argument is actually being advanced. BenB4's objection, his basis for removing what I had added, has two parts: the substance and the nature of the source. In this case, the source is adequate *for this purpose.* WP:RS does not address the issue of self-validating claims. I.e., if I write, in a Wikipedia article, that it is being argued that X, and I source the argument, I have established, beyond doubt, actually, that the argument is being made if the source makes that argument. If we are going to have Pro and Con sections, it is not necessary that the arguments be from what are, for the purposes of asserting fact, reliable sources. Self-published is irrelevant for this.

However, the source is not "self-published." It is an on-line newspaper. Follow the citation above and see! Submissions to that source are reviewed and edited. It isn't a blog, as such. It has a staff of writers.

Note that BenB4 is entirely partial with respect to this. The Pro section -- and, indeed the Con section -- contains other unsourced Pro and Con arguments. I think, in fact, that what BenB4 most dislikes is that it was sourced. It is clear from his other edits and conduct that he does not want to see negative information about IRV in the article, but he is quite happy for positive information to remain. The Con argument is not seriously damaging to the IRV cause, but the source is.

I mentioned before that, if he insisted on removing Con arguments from the Con section, on the basis that they were unsourced -- it really shouldn't be all that necessary for that section, because the testimony of any one of us that they have heard the argument should be enough, unless there is evidence (contrary testimony) it is a straw man argument, attributed to opposition in order to make the opposition look bad --- I'd proceed to remove all unsourced material from the Pro and Con sections, but I did not want to do that. So I tested the waters by putting in a sourced argumnent. The source proves that the argument is being seriously made. Blogs would not ordinarily be adequate sourcing. But, remember, we can have anything in the article that we agree upon. Our consensus actually trumps any rule. So citing the rules on sources in this case is ... not Wikipedian. I've been raising the issue on Talk. BenB4 has not addressed it.

Do we want Pro and Con arguments? If we do, then we must be even-handed about them, and not insist upon rigorous sourcing on one side only!

However, I will not restore the reference today; instead I will allow time for comment. Nevertheless, BenB4's behavior is inviting intervention. Taken together with the anonymous multiple reverts, clear violation of Wikipedia rules, there is an active war here to keep promotional material in and critical material out of the Instant Runoff Voting article. Every nuance of wording is being monitored for political effect, spin, and evidence for this is accumulating with many of the edits occurring. And I, for one, am not going to tolerate that, nor do I think that Wikipedia will. I want a balanced, fair, and complete article, and that is what Wikipedia and the readership deserves.

Now, as to the substance. Does the article not claim what I reported? Again, the source is above. Adn here is a direct quotation from it:

"2) Negative campaigning. It was a vote winning argument for Proposition A but it's a myth."

Nuff said. BenB4 is doing what he wants to do and then making up reasons for it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abd (talk • contribs) 02:33, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

That link is a primary source. You do not need someone else to report that that link says what it says. KVenzke 14:15, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

It is a primary source per WP:PSTS but it is not a reliable source per WP:RS. The core policy WP:V is explicit that challenged material not sourced to a reliable source may be removed by any editor. And, the fact remains that it says nothing quantitative about whether negative campaigning decreased or not, only that it did not disappear, which was never promised by the IRV advocates, as far as I know (I don't live in San Francisco.) ←Ben^B4 14:36, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Please see this section of WP:PSTS:

An article or section of an article that relies on a primary source should (1) only make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge, and (2) make no analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims. Contributors drawing on primary sources should be careful to comply with both conditions.

The only thing we use this source for is to show that a certain criticism is made. I don't know how you continue to miss this point.

In any case, it isn't relevant what IRV advocates promised. The "con" section is only about IRV, not IRV advocates.

But it is funny that you think you can use that as an argument when it is only true "as far as you know because you don't live in San Francisco." KVenzke 14:46, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

The statement said, "Does not reduce negative campaigning." The source said nothing about whether negative campaigning was reduced or not; only that it was still present. Therefore, it was far beyond "analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative" and well in to the realm of just plain inaccurate. Plus, the source is a blog, which is invalid as self-published per WP:SPS.

An accurate statement would be "Does not eliminate negative campaigning." I, for one, would not object to that. Acct4 17:41, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Ben, reading the article it claims that the "negative campaigning" issue was a "winning argument for Proposition A" which "is a myth." (See it being used as an argument here.) He says "there is no evidence IRV is stemming the flow of hit pieces." I don't see how it is unfair to say that this article is criticizing that IRV had not "reduced" negative campaigning.

I am skeptical that this link counts as a "blog." It appears to be a newspaper. KVenzke 18:13, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

It is a newspaper. It looks like a blog and Ben called it a blog, so I did not peer into the "About" section. My fault. However, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Acct4 19:41, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Mr. Venzke. A voice of reason. The Pro and Con sections have many unverified arguments. We could claim that an argument is being made simply because someone puts in the section, but that would go too far. If an argument is being made somewhere, independently of Wikipedia, if it has any substance at all as shown by broad discussion, then it exists. First BenB4 claimed that this was a blog, which was not true. Then he claimed that it didn't say what was claimed. Which was not true, and I quoted it exactly. True, I summarized part of what the source said, but what I quoted shows that the substance was correct; if it was not, correcting it would be more appropriate than taking it out. But BenB4, it would seem, is not interested in balance. He wants to leave arguments promoting IRV in, merely as assertions without sources -- but he applies insanely strict standards to arguments contrary to IRV, and he's been doing this for some time, it is blatant. The impression left by the article before I started editing it was that the opposition to IRV was based on "comfort" with the status quo.... and that the ballot was complicated ... and other relatively minor stuff. The actual objections to IRV being raised in real political contests were almost entirely absent. This is bias, and BenB4 has been working hard to maintain it.

We can hope that he will come to his senses. This article, if not fixed, is going to be tagged as POV, which will stand out as a red flag, and the reasons why it is tagged will also be clear. It will make IRV activists look very bad. We all have, legitimately, an interest in seeing that information from Wikipedia on IRV is accurate, fair, and balanced. It's the "balance" issue that is the most difficult, but we *start* by removing controversial material from the article or editing it to become non-controversial. "Controversial" can include true material that is imbalanced. As an example, if you have a list of bad qualities of IRV, and it includes every one you can think of and find, and even source in complicance with policy, but no list of good qualities, it would be imbalanced. Only if similar effort is put into *completing* the overall picture is it balanced. Venzke has now restored my edit on Bucklin. What the anonymous editor reverted out was not controversial. Venzke simply reworded it in a less controversial way. Is Bucklin a form of IRV? Well, of course, *not exactly*. But it certainly is similar, or else why would it be in the article at all? How is it similar? Well, it is an "instant runoff" method. It holds a plurality election, and if there is no majority winner, it brings in more alternative votes. FairVote really wants to emphasize that IRV is not like Bucklin, so it is important to them, politically, that the similarities be de-emphasized and the differences emphasized. What Venske did was accurate, and maintained the balance. Why is this so important? Well, Bucklin was ruled unconstitutional by the Minnesota Supreme Court, and many analysts -- including myself -- think that the ruling applies to IRV as well. FairVote wants to de-emphasize that, because the claim -- by the city attorney -- has caused at least one city to stop IRV initiatives, not wanting to face legal challenge. Minneapolis, though, went ahead in spite of the advice. By the way, the decision in the case, Brown v. Smallwood, was thoroughly defective, bad law, and was a travesty from the beginning. But that's not the point here. The point is that subtle wording is important to FairVote and the reverts and edits under discussion are being used to maintain exactly what FairVote wants, how they want to spin information, and to block balancing information and the removal of POV material.

If BenB4, on the other hand, wants to insist upon sourcing all arguments, Pro and Con, we must be even about that. I'm not removing the unsourced arguments yet because I know they are ones actually made. But I will remove them in the interest of balance if we cannot get legitimate con arguments up and sticking. An Arguments section is highly useful on a topic like this, but it is not essential. Abd 17:25, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Continuing problem with Introduction, Robert's Rules

The Robert's Rules mention in the introduction is being reinserted again and again, without discussion here. This time it was another new user, no prior history.

Diff for edit

The reason given simply repeats the claim that is being removed as false: "(IRV is the only preference voting method specifically recommended by RRO. That is an important fact.)"

It isn't a fact, it is a piece of political propaganda. Absolutely, it is important. That's why so much energy is going into maintaining it in prominent position in this article. If it were a fact, it might still be inappropriate, placed as it is. But it is not a fact. RR does not recommend what is known in the U.S. as "Instant Runoff Voting." What is actually being proposed in the U.S. (as "IRV," for public elections, is quite contrary to the principles of parliamentary procedure, and, specifically, to Robert's Rules. I quoted the source elsewhere here in talk, shortly above, so that anyone can read it quickly, but anyone could also follow the links in the original reference. The problem is that if you don't understand the *details* of IRV, it can look like what RR describes as an "example" of "preference voting" is IRV. But there is a crucial difference, and that difference, which is not a triviality, is what makes the claim false, in addition to several other smaller problems: RR does not exactly "recommend" the IRV-like method it describes, it merely gives it as an example of preferential voting, at the same time as it points out the severe problems of preferential voting. It's describing options that organizations have. But because RR highly recommends that no election be won by a mere plurality, what it describes *must*, as it is counted, elect a winner by a true majority, which makes IRV about half as bad as it is without that requirement. There remains another severe problem, which Robert's Rules details. Why isn't *that* mentioned in the article?

The standard IRV process, which is described in the IRV Article, *creates* an artificial majority, when a real one does not exist, by discarding any inconvenient ballots. And then it is promoted as "guarantees a majority winner." This, indeed, is one of the major criticisms of IRV, and the propaganda is, quite simply, false -- and this is not controversial. Robert's Rules actually recommends a completely different election method, not preference voting, and this is a true recommendation, not a qualified one. It mentions preference voting when its recommended method is not considered practical. Majority vote.

Given that the claim in the introduction is, on its face, when the details are examined, false, and that no editor has done other than simply repeat the claim without examining and addressing the details, I am going to re-edit it. Since I don't think *any* mention of Robert's Rules is appropriate in the introduction, I'd prefer to see reference to Robert's Rules made explicitly correct and placed elsewhere in the article. So I'm not taking the other tack, which would be to add qualifying material that makes the comment true.

Tom Ruen, in the other section on Robert's Rules, made the comment that "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."

That is correct. However, Robert's Rules is explicit that, in determining a majority in a poll, all ballots casting a valid vote *for any eligible candidate" must be included in the body from which "majority" is derived. And the method it describes does, indeed, use an absolute majority of ballots containing a valid vote, whether exhausted or not, unlike IRV. Mr. Ruen's comment is true, and irrelevant. Does Robert's Rules recommend the method described in the article? Or does it recommend something different? Or does it make any recommendation at all? If is, after all, *describing options*. But that latter point is relatively minor, compared to the basic point that a *crucial* rule is different in the method described by RR and what is described as IRV in the article. This isn't difficult! Abd 20:24, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

If there is doubt about the character of a claim in an article, the claim should not be there until there is a consensus regarding it. Usually, if it is something important, language can be developed which will enjoy a consensus. If the participants sincerely want a neutral article. There is evidence that one of the participants here is a paid proponent of IRV; which would not be any excuse at all for removing or undoing his contributions.... but it does mean that we should be careful. This is an extremely hot topic.

I moved the following here from the 3RR topic where it was inappropriately placed:

It is unreasonably splitting hairs arguing whether the example of preferential voting given in RONR (Robert's Ruloes of Order Newly Revised 10th edition)is IRV or not, merely based on speculation as to whether RONR would insist on a whole new election in the event that exhasuted ballots meant there was NO majority among all ballots cast.

Welcome, thanks for coming in out of the cold. In any case, your argument is ignoring the central point. It's not hair splitting, and it does not depend on the "speculation" you mention, though, in fact, RONR might suggest exactly that. It dislikes any election by less than a majority of valid ballots cast, and the ballots discarded in the "Instant Runoff Voting" process detailed in this article does indeed exclude exhausted ballots from the basis for "majority." Whether or not the RONR preferential voting election would fail depends on the bylaws; RONR is clear, however, that an election by a mere plurality is not permitted unless specifically allowed in the Bylaws. The method described, however, which you claim is IRV, is crucially different, on this very point. It does not consider a majority to be a majority of ballots remaining after exhausted ballots have been set aside; rather it considers all ballots containing a valid vote to be the basis for the majority. As you well know, the claim is that IRV guarantees a majority election, but this claim is based on the exclusion of exhausted ballots.

The question is whether the version of IRV used in much of Australia, wherein all candidates must be ranked for a ballot paper to be formal (valid), is fundamentally different or basically the same as the verion of IRV used in other parts of Australia and in the U.S. allowing voters to rank only as many as they wish. I think nearly all impartial unbiased observers would agree they are variants of the same method.

That is not in dispute. However, "variant" is an imprecise term. The devil is in the details, which you surely know. We could claim that all ranked methods are *variants*, and, of course, we could include Bucklin among the variants. Elsewhere, I wrote about this issue that what has been claimed here is equivalent to claiming that if someone noted that, if you can't walk to work, you could drive a car, you have therefore been recommended to buy a Ford. There is more than one objection involved.

And you well know how important this is. You want that "recommendation" to be prominent in the article, because it helps your cause. I don't blame you! But we must resist all attempts to put the article to partisan service; the goal of Wikipedia articles is to inform, not to advocate and shape opinion, and it is crucial that these articles be unbiased and free, not only of factual inaccuracies, but also of imbalanced presentation. As a current example, there might be a series of actual Pro arguments, actually being made, but if similar real Con arguments are missing, even though they are also being made, the article is imbalanced. There is an effect to giving twelve reasons why we should buy the election method. That's what one expects to see in a piece of promotional material. But this article is not your promotional piece. By participating here, working with a consensus of the editors, you can help make sure that the article is informative, that it does not contain improper material casting aspersions on Instant Runoff Voting and thus your own political cause, but the line is drawn when you attempt to manipulate the article to make it "favorable." You can make sure that favorable information, properly sourced if necessary, is included. You can demand that unfavorable information that is not properly sourced, as needed for its context, be excluded, and you may, of course, assert all these things through edits, though it is far better, ultimately, to discuss it here. Missing material is not an emergency. Controversial material may well be. It doesn't belong in the article, unless clearly labeled as controversial, i.e., properly framed, as we are doing with Pro and Con arguments. Those arguments are not asserted as true. They are asserted merely as being arguments that are being made (but they should not be made up just for here). Now, to the point:

I would, however offer a compromise on wording that acknowledges that RONR recommends a class of preferential voting methods rather than only IRV.

This is *better*, but still not exactly correct and, you well know, being inexactly correct can be a propaganda technique, used well to spin and manipulate opinion. And defensible, of course, "Well, if you want to split hairs ...."

Yes. I want to split hairs, and if I had nits, I'd pick them too. We get to do this here!

How is it not exactly correct? Robert's Rules is not "recommending" a class of preferential voting methods, it is noting that, if it is necessary to conduct an election by a single mail poll, that it is better to use a preferential voting method than simple plurality. I don't think anyone who understands election methods disputes this. What is in dispute is the best methods to use. Robert's Rules describes, in the cited material, a method which is indeed quite similar to IRV, but the important question of how "majority" is determined is different.

So I'm going to have trouble with "recommended" and I'm going to have trouble with "IRV," plus one more thing: I'm going to have trouble with the placement of the mention, though that alone would not have made me give this priority. Further, if the Robert's Rules discussion of its IRV-like method is going to be there, the general caution that Robert's Rules gives about "preferential voting" should also be there, though not necessarily at the same position in the article. I suspect you will see this argument from Robert's Rules be incorporated in the article shortly.

How about

IRV is detailed in "Robert's Rules of Order" as an example of "preferential voting," which it recommends as superior to the commonly used plurality voting system for electing officers by mail. IRV is used by many non-governmental organizations, including the American Political Science Association, which uses it for the election of its national president. ::Tbouricius 21:47, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to edit it to:

Preference voting is discussed in "Robert's Rules of Order" and an example is given which is similar to IRV. Robert's Rules prefers election by majority, with repeated balloting if necessary, but suggests that bylaws may permit election by plurality, including a possible plurality election through IRV, which it considers better than simple plurality for electing officers by mail.

Somehow I have a feeling you may not like part of this, but it's all true and supported by the source: The "majority" through which IRV completes an election is not recognized as such, in some cases, .e., there are significant exhausted ballots, by Robert's Rules.

As to the American Political Science Association, properly source it and I have no objection at this time. If you want to say "many," you will need to source more than one or two, I'd suggest. Tricky word, "many." It could mean "only a few." Depends on context. No problem with "some" or other neutral term. Abd 04:45, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Abd adds this:

Preference voting is discussed in "Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised" and an example is 
given which is similar to IRV. Robert's Rules prefer election by majority, with repeated 
balloting if necessary, but suggest that bylaws may permit election by plurality, including 
a possible plurality election through IRV, which they considers better than simple plurality,
for electing officers by mail.

Abd, oh what a hopelessly warped perspective you have. repeated balloting if necessary? simple plurality is a meaningless phrase. plurality election through IRV?! Why are you focusing so heavily on exhausted ballots? On denying the existence of a majority result? Do people say that a two round system is a possibly plurality election? This is hopeless to me. I fully support the original statement. Tom Ruen 04:58, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. To the one-eyed, someone with two eyes has a "hopelessly warped perspective."

"Repeated Balloting" is mentioned in the source for this comment. I see that the link was lost, I'll restore it, but for convenience, here is the page: Voting_methods_in_Robert's Rules of Order Perhaps you should read it before barging ahead. "plurality election through IRV" refers to accepting the result of an IRV election even though a majority of voters, casting legitimate votes for at least one candidate, did not vote for the winner. Exhausted ballots represent voters who did cast a legitimate vote and who are, by Robert's Rules, in the example touted as the "recommendation" for IRV, therefore part of the body of voters considered when determining a majority. If the language could be improved, by all means do so. But the substance is correct, and the revert by the anonymous editor covered over the fact, so I Undid it. If my facts are wrong, correct them. If my language is poor, improve it. If I misspell a word -- as I did -- fix it. But simply saying that I've got a warped perspective isn't going to cut it. I deny "the existence of a majority result" because *Robert's Rules* denies it, and it happens to be a fact. Someone just put an edit in showing exhausted ballots -- about time -- and giving a reason as, essentially, the voters didn't care if their favorite wasn't going to win. Robert's Rules does not make that assumption; rather it simply notes that a majority -- a *true* majority -- has not been obtained. The reason is unknown. But, for starters, it could be that the voter is unwilling to vote for any of the remaining candidates, to legitimize their election. Robert's Rules respects this, because Robert's Rules are based on majority rule. Period. So the preference voting implementation they describe *does* respect the principle of true majority, which is precisely how it differs from "IRV" as described in this article.

I'm really pleased by this sequence of edits and arguments. First of all, there is progress toward consensus. Secondly, the issues are becoming clear, to those with two eyes. I do recommend that editors of these articles, where possible, have two eyes, i.e., the ability to see from more than one position. (In this sense, *all* of us have two eyes, but we often have one of them firmly closed, and the other may be squinting....) And, thirdly, each action by the editors reveals something about them. Anyone may be a Wikipedia editor, but we do need to know with whom we are working. Welcome to all, but ... with some I will be watching my wallet. Abd 19:05, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't believe I have any eyes shut, but I admit my patience is limited. For me the issue of naming IRV is problematic (perhaps explaining why RR uses "preference voting", even if equally unsatisfactory, since there can be varied ways of implementing it, and they all could be considered IRV OR perhaps some might claim some aren't IRV.

The fundamental components I see is in an IRV system are the same as any elimination-runoff system except for using ranked ballots: (1) Rank ballots are give and everyone gets one vote for the highest ranked candidate that is active. At no time does any person have more than one active vote. (2) If there's no winner from a given round, one or more candidates are eliminated from the bottom. I'd say those are fixed, and anything that doesn't support those shouldn't be called IRV. But rules of how exhausted ballots are treated, and rules on breaking ties and rules on how many votes a candidate needs to win can have different answers and in my mind still fit under IRV.

If RR suggests exhausted ballots to be counted against any winner, that's fine. So it is possible the process will end without a majority candidate picked. SO they can either (1) Pick a plurality winner at the last round (2) Pick no winner and hold a new ballot of some sort. Whatever choice is made, it still fits within how I see IRV works. Some exhaustive ballot elections require 60% for a winner to be found. Such a system might substitute an IRV process and stop at some point before a winner is chosen. This is still an IRV process because everyone gets one vote. Other elections might want to reproduce a two round system with IRV, eliminating all but the top-two from the first round. This is still IRV. Perhaps every variation deserves a different name. I don't know. There's already varied names for IRV anyway.

I suppose if RR NEVER mentions IRV, then Wikipedia shouldn't imply it does. But to go the opposite direction, to imply RR allows any or many voting method because it doesn't fully define what it means by preference voting is more deceptive. Tom Ruen 03:02, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Two issues: RR does allow any voting method, for RR allows any deliberative body to set its own rules. In this case, it is merely discussing options for voting by mail. It does not prefer that. It prefers "repeating balloting" until there is a majority winner. This is not merely presenting the same election to the electorate, the candidate mix can change, new candidates can be proposed, etc. Robert's Rules is about deliberative process, and election methods are a shortcut used when there is not time or opportunity for what is actually preferred.

The second issue is the really important one here" The article claimed, before I noticed the problem, that Robert's Rules recommended IRV. Now, I had believed this myself. Long ago, I saw the FairVote material on this, which included the quotation from Robert's Rules, and I *also* thought that it recommended IRV. But something seemed strange to me, because I knew how important majority rule was to Robert's Rules. I simply though that they didn't know about the better methods possible.... However, after that, in various forums, the importance of the majority issue had arisen and had been extensively discussed. And so I became acutely aware that IRV was a plurality method (i.e., can elect a winner by plurality as described in this article). So, then, because I was learning that I needed to check everything that came from FairVote (we have only begun to disentangle what they have created), I reread the material. The first clue was that the article didn't mention IRV by name. It mentioned "preference voting." Then I noticed that it wasn't really a recommendation, and it specifically pointed out the problems with "preference voting" -- even with majority wins! But, still, there was the example they gave, which certainly looked like IRV. Wasn't it fair to call this "IRV"? And then I saw it. They explicitly defined the majority as being a majority of all ballots with legitimate votes. Crucial difference.

Suppose someone read, in our article, that Robert's Rules recommends "IRV," and so they read the description of IRV in the article, and hold the election, and they use what is in the article. Have they taken the recommendation of Robert's Rules? No, they have taken what was described in the article. For too long, the editors of this article have striven to ensure that IRV is compared with only plurality. That's POV! NPOV requires balanced treatment. If you are going to compare IRV with one method, then comparing it with other methods, within reason, would seem appropriate.... It is not necessary that this article compare methods at all; but if we are going to do it, it should not be done in a manner that is restricted to create a favorable impression. In short, it should be NPOV. For too long, the views of BenB4, a Wikipedia lawyer, the very paradigm of one, held forth here. He abused his knowledge of Wikipedia Policy to discourage newcomers to the article, it's worth looking back at what he did here in Talk. He was a very good example of what an editor should not be. Where was the welcome to newcomers with differing opinions? Where was the concern for balance?

Remember, I started by completely taking out the reference to Robert's Rules. It was, quite simply, incorrect. But, of course, I discussed it here. I have restored the language that I edited from Tbouricius' version. By no means do I think that it is necessarily the best final version, nor do I think that the material should be in the introduction. But if it is accurate, I don't mind it being in the introduction. It's wordy, unfortunately, but if it is shorter, at the expense of accuracy, given its political importance, I couldn't accept it. So, perhaps, we could find shorter language that preserves accuracy. The problem should be explored in detail. What FairVote wants is to preserve the language Robert's Rules recommends .... but that may not be acceptable unless what they actually recommend is stated in a way that is not easily misunderstood. If it needs to remain long, perhaps it should be moved down in the article. Abd 05:46, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I have restored reference to the APSA (see Article V of their constitution here http://www.apsanet.org/content_2857.cfm ) and changed "many" to more neutral "various."

Good. Progress. Thanks. I'll check the reference; the remaining question would be the placement of this in the article, but I'll let that go for the time. The exact wording of all this is particularly important because of its placement in the introduction. Abd 03:22, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I added a quote from RONR where it says IRV is especially useful and fair for mail elections with an external link to the entire "preferential voting" part of section 45 of RONR.

Not so good. Please pay attention to this: the *exact* nature of what is in Robert's Rules is important. What they describe is not clearly "IRV;" indeed, there is this whole semantic problem of the use of the word to refer to a class of methods. It is not clear that Robert's Rules is "recommending" even preferential voting, which is a general class broader than even single-user STV, which is even broader than, on the one hand, true-majority required and plurality accepted versions. Since the article accepts plurality winners and does not define majority as does Robert's Rules, we cannot say that Robert's Rules even describes "IRV" without qualification. Abd 03:22, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Finally I am ready to go to arbitration if desired. To argue that "preferential voting" is merely an IRV-like method seems disingenuous, as it is exactly how IRV is conducted in most of Australia. The fact that IRV can also be adopted with optional ranking does not make it a different voting method. The notion that requiring voters to rank all candidates rather than only as many as the wish is a different voting method is nonsensical when the ballot, and vote tabulation procedures are the same. I should note that a traditional two-round election is deemed to find a "majority winner" even though some voters sat out the second round. A ballot that does not rank any of the finalists (exhausted) is "blank" for that round of counting and not counted in the denominator for calculating a majority threshold.

Tbouricius 17:32, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

First of all, I don't desire arbitration yet, and the reason is that Tbouricius is clearly negotiating, and it appears to be in good faith. While it is slow, it appears to me that progress is being made. Arbitrators come in, some times, and wreak havoc. Other times they do precisely the right thing, it can be erratic. If we come to the point of going back and forth with the same edit, with no movement toward consensus, *then* would be the time for arbitration. It should be noted that Tbouricius only registered on Wikipedia a couple of days ago, at the same time as the director of FairVote began his "anonymous" extensive reverts to suppress a whole series of efforts to remove POV and promotional effect from the article. It's too early to say how all this will play out, and it is complicated by the presence of a sock puppet, Acct4, replacing the previous sock, BenB4, banned a couple of days ago by admin. Some of Acct4's edits are harmless or even useful; but he was relentless in protecting the propaganda in the article, and appears to have driven off a number of contributors who might otherwise have helped balance the article. We will have succeeded when both supporters and opponents of IRV can say about the article, "Yes, that's true," without having to hedge and qualify it.

Now, as to substance, I'm not arguing what was claimed. Rather, "Preferential Voting" is clearly a class of methods which includes IRV and others, including Condorcet methods and Bucklin, for example. So if Robert's Rules recommends "preferential voting," -- and that itself is not clear -- it is not, specifically, recommending IRV. However, on the other hand, a method is described as an example of preferential voting, which is, unfortunately, similar to but *not* the same as IRV. Close, but no cigar. And it is this critical difference of how majority is defined.

When critics of IRV point out the mangled results in San Francisco, IRV defenders claim that San Francisco doesn't have "real" IRV, since the choices are truncated (and thus there are more exhausted ballots). But, here, when we point out that what Robert's Rule describes is different form IRV, on quite a similar point, it is claimed that it is "disingenuous" to distinguish between the methods, they are the same method. It is more accurate to state that they are members of the same class of methods, but recommendation of a class of methods *for consideration* is not the same as a recommendation of a specific member of that class. Or could we say that Robert's Rules recommends Bucklin? Or Condorcet methods? (The latter would be more true! -- but still not accurate).

Tbouricius has been a consultant to FairVote, he is not a disinterested party. I don't mind him participating as an editor at all, quite the contrary, but his affiliation, his institutional bias, should be noted. He is actually more *unbiased,* it appears, than might be expected, but still, what I see here is an attempt to maintain the appearance of endorsement of IRV by Robert's Rules, which is inappropriate. What Robert's Rules describes -- not "recommends," for it clearly considers it inferior to other possibilities and merely an expedient solution -- is different from what is described on this page as "IRV," in a way that removes a considerable portion of the problems that election methods experts see with IRV. And then Robert's Rules points out, as well, the other part, that remains, that is, indeed, inherent in "preferential voting" of the IRV type, so it is a bit of a mystery to me why RR did not describe alternative methods that don't have this problem. My guess is ... politics.

Yes, in top-two runoff, those who abstain from voting the second time are not considered as part of the majority. However, IRV is not top-two runoff. Robert's Rules prefers repeated balloting until there is a majority winner. It opposes, explicitly, top-two runoff. IRV is almost the same as top-two runoff, it behaves like it, so this is, in fact, another criticism of IRV. But all this is moot. The question here is whether or not Robert's Rules "recommends" -- as it was originally stated -- "IRV." Arguing that it is legitimate to consider exhausted ballots as abstentions, which is what Mr. Bouricius has just done, is not only beside the point, it is actually arguing with Robert's Rules, which does *not* consider this legitimate.

I'm going to edit the text again; given the sensitivity of the position of the mention, in the introduction, small details matter. If we can't agree on the wording *it should not be there at all.* There is no requirement that we mention Robert's Rules. Frankly, I do think it appropriate, but the mention should be more thorough and should include the *criticism* that applies to IRV which is in the Rules. And all of this points to it being later in the article, not in the introduction. If I had time, that's what I'd do. Abd 03:22, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, I did the edit and, as I was doing so, reviewed the references. I could not maintain as much accommodation to what Mr. Bouricious had suggested in his edit as I had thought would be possible. I really think that the issue deserves more space than the brief mention possible at the beginning. Robert's Rules is actually discouraging the use of its IRV-like method. Further, when I followed the link about APSA, the bylaws were unclear on the point about majority. Given the insistence that Robert's Rules requires that bylaws be explicit whenever there is an election by plurality, which is what IRV can do under some configurations, I also had to insert qualifying language there as well.

Here is the text from the Constitution of APSA: "If no nominee receives at least fifty-percent-plus-one of the first preferences, other preferences shall be added from the first-preference ballots of each eliminated nominee according to the standard method of the alternative vote system, which shall be prescribed by the Council in advance of nominations, until one nominee receives at least fifty-percent-plus-one of the aggregated preferences and is declared the winner."

Note that there may be details of the method not described in the bylaws. That's one problem. The other is that the meaning of "the aggregated preferences" is unclear. It is entirely possible that, for example, the "standard method of the alternative vote system" is what is described in Robert's Rules, it certainly would not be surprising! And this would conform to the bylaws as stated, being a possible interpretation of what is there.

Abd 03:48, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I am going to undo the previous editor's (Abd's) last edits.

I see four key points revealing POV by the previous editor.

RONR describes IRV in substantial detail as its only example of preferntial voting. This is not a description of some un-named method that is "similar to IRV" but rather IRV plain and simple. The previous editor seeks to invent a distinction based on whether voters are required to rank all candidates or whether they may short list their rankings. In fact, IRV is widely implemented using both of these rules in Australia, where it is called Alternative Vote. The previous editor tries to make a big distinction as to whether each approach creates a majority winner. This misses the reality of implementation. Yes, with mandatory full ranking you are assured of a majority winner at the end...but that is only because any ballots that don't fully rank are discarded as spoiled ballots and not counted in the denominator. This is exactly the same as what happens in optional ranking IRV where the final winner has a majority of all ballots that are not spoiled or blank FOR THAT FINAL ROUND OF COUNTING (meaning exhausted). In other words, with an identical stack of ballots, the previous editor would deem there to be a TRUE majority if the ignored ballots were short-listed and deemed "spoiled" and NONE of their rankings were incorporated into the count, but say there was no TRUE majority winner if the identical ballots were counted using optional ranking IRV and their top rankings WERE included in the count and the final winner had a majority of non-exhausted ballots but no majority if exhausted ballots are added into the denominator.

The previous editor refuses to allow the word "recommend" in describing what RONR says about IRV in mail elections. So I previously changed that to what it says about "preferential voting" (which includes IRV). He found that also unacceptable, denying it made such a recommendation. So I instead inserted a QUOTE from RONR. That quote, which he ALSO removed states that preferntial voting (including IRV) "is especially useful and fair in an election by mail if it is impractical to take more than one ballot." I would prefer the shorter "recommends" but it is clearly POV to remove this quote.

The previous editor also removed the key comparisons in RONR between the class of preferntial voting (including IRV) and the more widely used and familiar plurality voting method. While RONR MOST prefers voting over and over again with no eliminations (and even new candidates coming forward) until a majority is achieved (unrealistic in governmental elections), in the key comparison with PLURALITY voting RONR states that preferntial voting (including IRV) is "preferable to an election by plurality." It is preferable because there is much better chance of finding a true majority winner (whether one discounts ballots that are not fully ranked by calling them spoiled or calling them exhausted.)

Finally, the previous editor removed the reference to the fact that the APSA (political scientists who understand and know about voting methods) has incorprated IRV into their own constitution. He removed this previously, saying he needed documentation. So I inserted a link to their constitution. But he has again deleted the reference. Again the editor tries to invent a distinction based on whether short-listed ballots are called "exhausted" or called "spoiled," (one being a majority and the other not) and pretends not to recognize that the Alternative Vote (the political science name for it) is in fact IRV (the lay-person name for it).

The previous editor repeatedly claims others are inserting POV, but it appears to me that he is inserting his own POV, trying to support some politcal agenda.

Tbouricius 15:09, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, I was trying to find a way to keep the reference to the description of IRV in there, without it having the appearance of recommending something which Robert's Rules is quite specifically *not* recommending, which is the IRV process as described in this article. What Robert's Rules gives as an example is critically different from what this article describes as IRV. "IRV", if it is going to be described more generally, could indeed be described as "detailed" by Robert's Rules, the language suggested by Tbouricius, but IRV proponents, here, have consistently rejected efforts to make the description more general. So, I now find it necessary to remove the reference to Robert's Rules from the introduction, which should scrupulously avoid any possible controversy not labeled as such. My intention would be to put it back in the body, where a more detailed description would be appropriate, as necessary to enjoy consensus. As to agenda, yes, I have an agenda: to disallow the use of Wikipedia as a political instrument. That is my *primary* agenda here. Yes, also, I'm familiar with election methods and have come to one clear conclusion at this time: there is a far simpler reform than IRV, more in line with the *intentions* of Robert's Rules, no cost, etc., and I could go on and on, but I won't. It's moot here. This article should not even *appear* to promote IRV, and it certainly has that appearance when the language of Robert's Rules is "modified" to make it appear to be a "recommendation" of "IRV." Yes, indeed, it's easy to overlook the distinction. I'm deleting the reference. As to APSA, there is a question as to whether or not a detailed list of organizations using IRV belongs in the introduction. I'd say not. We can put it back elsewhere. Indeed, the whole list of usages belongs deeper in the article, the introduction should summarize, very briefly. I could respond in detail to what Tbouricius has written above, but I won't at this time, and, in fact, I prefer to see intervention by other editors. I'm seeking consensus, a real consensus, not just my own opinion, which I assert strongly but do not expect to control. I *am* standing up for all those editors who left this article in frustration, it's obvious from seeing the history. I'm not leaving unless asked to do so by Wikipedia admin, which I rather doubt will happen, I am actually promoting Wikipedia policy here against a false consensus of editors who dominated for a time because they drove away others. One will note that my edits are generally surviving, if in modified form. Certain key points, however, are considered essential by IRV advocates, and the Robert's Rules issue is one of them. Remember, Tbouricius is an editor with a conflict of interest, see his user page, and see also http://www.fairvote.org/irv/crv.htm. Absolutely, he has the right to edit, as far as I am concerned, but the default is that controversial material, material which has been challenged, shouldn't be in the article simply because editors with a conflict of interest want it there. We can put it in, and I assume we will, it *is* relevant. But it is not, as it is, appropriate for the introduction, nor is other material currently there, so I expect to move that too. *Summary* of usage is appropriate to the intro, and my previous edit did just that with the APSA reference, with the intention to put a more specific reference later. Abd 16:14, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree that reference to the American Political Science Association use of IRV could be in another section of the article, although I think it is appropriate in the introduction. However, Abs's repeated efforts to distort or remove the fact that RONR (Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised 10th edition) does in fact recommend "preferential voting," detailing IRV as its example, when repeated balloting is not practical and the fact that RONR states unambiguously that it is preferrable to traditional plurality voting reveals an ardent attempt to insert his POV.

He tries to smear me by saying I have a "conflict of interest" simply because I am an expert who has worked with a variety of election reform groups including FairVote (but also the League of Women Voters, Common Cause and others) and have been studying, writing and lecturing about a variety of different voting methods (including IRV) for over a decade. The fact is that the accuser is biased against IRV, and is obviously not seeking to have a neutral document. Abd is an ardent advocate of Range Voting (a tiny fringe group of election reformers who are making maximum use of the Internet) and apparently sees the need to undercut other election reforms in order to promote his personal favorite.

It is now obvious to me that Abd is not in fact seeking any compromise at all. It is apparent to me that the goal of Abd is to remove facts about IRV that may happen to prompt a reader to like it, regardless of the truth or appropriateness of the statements. As evidence, note his repeated remnoval or distortion of the fact that Robert's Rules of Order describes IRV as an example of "preferential Voting" which it also recommends over plurality voting and as particularly useful and fair in elections by mail where repeated balloting is impractical. If Abd does not stop trying to manipulate the article to satisfy his POV, we must seek to have the page locked and bring in arbitration.

Tbouricius 23:06, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Easiest first: Tbouricius has a conflict of interest. That is not a smear, it's a fact, see his user page, or google Terril Bouricius. Having a conflict of interest is not reprehensible; Mr. Bouricius is to be congratulated for his public involvements, but one of those involvements, professionally, is with FairVote, as a consultant, and he is co-author with Rob Richie, director of FairVote, of a paper promoting IRV. See WP:COI. He claims that I am an "ardent advocate of Range Voting." That is not correct. Certainly I have participated in discussions of Range Voting, and understand its theoretical basis and reasons why it is a good election method, but I am far more attached to Robert's Rules and deliberative process for elections, hence my sensitivity to the claim about what Robert's Rules allegedly recommends. My interest in the topic of election methods does not itself create a conflict of interest. If I were using this article to promote some other method, that would begin to enter the territory of COI, but I'm not. I'm aiming for a neutral article, and, yes, I'm concerned about what has been, apparently, the careful arrangement of this article for advocacy purpose by IRV advocates. I have not claimed that Mr. Bouricius should not edit this article, and one might note that I have accepted some of his edits.

Next, Mr. Bouricius and his associate, Rob Richie, the latter editing through 72.75.x.x, have been unwilling to accept a move of the Robert's Rules material to the usage section of the article, clearly because they desire the advocacy effect of having that mention in the introduction. It is not necessary in the introduction, at all, for encylcopedic purpose. Mr. Richie, in particular, knows that many of the people he will want to reach may not read beyond the introduction, so he wants to be sure that they see this "recommendation." That they insist, in fact, on it being in the introduction is nearly a proof of their intention: advocacy.

Wikipedia is based on the principle of a consensus of editors. Generally, it is preferred that differences of opinion on what should be in the article be worked out in Talk before the material appears in the article; this is precisely to avoid edit wars. I am not willing to allow the material, as it was, and as it had been reverted, to be in the article at all, but especially in the introduction. In order to make the Robert's Rules mention *accurate*, more explanation is required, it seems, than would be appropriate in the introduction. If, on the other hand, someone comes up with acceptable language for it, it *could* be in the introduction. But I still think it better deeper in.

Now, this comes to the crux of the matter. How is it to be decided? We could indeed call in arbitration. I certainly wouldn't object! But I think it important to see who is involved here. Mr. Bouricius apparently registered on Wikipedia in order to enter this fray; it would appear that he was called in by Mr. Richie; that's speculation, to be sure, but the timing would be right. That's called "meat puppetry" and is a violation of Wikipedia policy. Again, I haven't complained, because I hope that Mr. Bouricius could become a constructive contributor to the final article. I would want every important argument for IRV to be in that article, but I insist on accuracy, where there is any controversy. And, similarly, I would want every important argument against IRV to likewise be in it. And these editors have consistently attempted to keep such out or to dilute its effect.

For example, the Arrow's theorem matter. Arrow's theorem is a general theorem about ranked election methods. It is described and referenced on the page that was cited in the Criteria Satisfied section of the article. Why should it be mentioned specially in this article? The reason is obvious to anyone familiar with the political debate: IRV does not satisfy a number of criteria commonly considered important by election methods experts, and so the promoters of IRV want to dilute or defuse the impact of any mention that IRV does not satisfy some election criteria. If we look at other election method articles, we don't see mention of Arrow's theorem.

Currently the article has, since my edit was reverted:

"Scholars of electoral systems often compare them using mathematically-defined voting system criteria. It is generally agreed by political scientists that, according to Arrow's Impossibility Theorem, no voting system can meet all the criteria."

What Bouricius claims is *not* generally agreed by scientists. Arrow's Impossibility Theorem specifically refers to ranked methods and to five specific criteria that cannot be simultaneously met by them. It does not refer to all voting systems, nor does it refer to all criteria. This, again, is typical of how the FairVote activists have developed spin. When critics of IRV point out that IRV does not satisfy certain criteria considered important, they cite Arrow's Theorem. "No election method is perfect!" But, in fact, some are more perfect than others. It's spin, political nuance and manipulation. There is no encyclopedic reason to mention Arrow's theorem in this article. It's appropriate and general practice on Wikipedia to list common criteria satisfied by election methods, and those not satisfied. Voting System Criterion, cited in the article, does describe (badly, actually, it needs editing itself) Arrow's Theorem, but to get the true story of Arrow's Theorem itself, one needs to go to Arrow's Impossibility Theorem.

Now, how do we decide what goes in the article and what does not. The standard for Wikipedia is a consensus of the editors, unless admin intervenes and freezes the article. Talk would not be frozen, so discussion would continue there. Now, who are the editors and what are their positions. There are not many.... I'm going to list those who have been active, with some notes

I looked back and what I found knocked my socks off, I was not expecting it. I had been told by Rob Richie that he had not been active with the article for a long time, and I had believed him. But I accidentally looked at the Talk History instead of the article History and saw, on September 4, as the first comment since July:

"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/"[5]

This edit was an anonymous editor, from an IP we have memorized: 72.75.x.x. This was Rob Richie, director of FairVote, acting to suggest that unfavorable information be removed from the article. And he did eight reverts on the article of this critic. This was a blatant violation of [[WP:3RR]. Note that I just allegedly did four reverts on this page and I got an immediate warning -- a threat, actually -- on my Talk page of 3RR violation. Nobody was paying attention here, and Richie was using anonymous logins to edit. I think it is time to escalate this.

Understand this. The Director of FairVote was anonymously deleting material he did not like from this article, before I arrived. If the user involved had been more sophisticated about Wikipedia, she'd have been filing complaints then. Edit war? It's been one-sided oppression, for quite some time. If it wasn't Richie, it was BenB4, a sock puppet, or now Acct4, his continuation. Have these "editors" who pretend that I am some biased interloper made any complaints about all these offenses? Not a peep. They were *happy* to have BenB4 doing their dirty work.

Understand that this is the public square, everything is recorded, it may be here a hundred years from now.

I'm editing again. Call for arbitration if you like, I'd welcome it. Do be aware that an outcome could be a ban? How will that look, Mr. Richie? "Director of FairVote banned from Wikipedia." How will they know it was you? Let's just say that, if it were necessary, we could prove it in a court of law. Presumably it won't come to that. I'd suggest, right now, that you stop this nonsense, and that you ask your friend, whom you brought in here as your meat puppet, to likewise desist. My goal remains a fair and neutral article, I have no desire to make it into an anti-IRV propaganda piece. But, I suggest, you have lost this particular propaganda tool.

As to the warning on my Talk page, it came from a *newly registered user*. If I have time, I'll file a sock report, most likely culprit is another sock of User:BenB4. When people like him start attacking me, I know I'm on the right track.

Counting the Votes

Previously, I took out "overall" from "overall majority," as it is redundant at best and seriously incorrect at worst. This is among what was put back in by a sock puppet or anonymous user, I think, I forget which.... It's important. An "overall" majority would refer to a majority of ballots, period. Or, following Robert's Rules practice or the like, a majority of ballots containing a valid vote. There is, however, no clear meaning to "overall majority." Just plain "majority" works.

The issue was important for propagandists, because a major pro argument for IRV has been "guarantees a majority winner." But, of course, no election method can do that except by excluding people who disagree! If I am willing to vote for, say, A or B for an office, and would prefer the office to remain vacant (or continue with a caretaker) if C or D are the only possible winners, I can be said to have "no preference between C and D" but the fact is that I am unwilling to contribute to their election, either one of them. Robert's Rules is clear: all decisions are to be made by majority vote, if possible, and repeated balloting is recommended if there is no majority winner in an election. Could be dozens of ballots. Accepting a plurality winner may indeed be necessary, but Robert's Rules require that this be explicit in the bylaws, and it is considered undesirable. This is why the "IRV"-like method described in Robert's Rules defines "majority" as "a majority of all ballots with a valid vote for an eligible candidate," not by the device of excluding ballots with only votes for dropped candidates, because the "majority" of the latter is really only a plurality. It is entirely possible that if presented with a ratification vote for the IRV plurality winner, a majority of voters would vote No.

IRV does not guarantee majority winners, period. No method does! At least, no method that does not involve actually convincing a majority that they should accept the result by voting for it! So the coercive methods used in some places do generate a majority result, of a kind, but it is not an unconstrained and free choice; clearly the freedom of the voter is subordinated to the desire to complete the election with an appearance of a majority result. (The issue is, of course, more complex than that, but, hey, this is a Talk page....) Abd 05:22, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

The term 'overall majority' is (was) linked to Simple_majority. This gives 2 definitions.

US: absolute majority (50% of the ballots cast) Outside: plurality (most voted for option, but not necessarily a majority).

The impression I got from its use was that it meant to mean 'majority of remaining valid votes', which neither of the definitions in the linked page agree with.

--Ivnryn 09:08, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

POV tag

I have just added the POV tag to the article. The article has been the object of an edit war for many weeks. People who are editing the article have a vested interest in what it says. Some paragraphs have been edited out and back into the article numerous times. I hope that the different parties can use this discussion page to discuss the controversial parts before editing the article further. Please do NOT remove the POV tag until the dispute is resolved (hopefully in a amicable manner). AugustinMa 08:03, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

In which direction are you saying it is biased? Acct4 10:28, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I am specifically referring to the edit war. Just look at the history. Obviously, each participant does not like the other's POV. AugustinMa 11:16, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

While true, the fact that there has been an edit war does not mean that the article is biased. Placing the {{POV}} tag means you believe it is. What bias do you think it reflects? Acct4 12:50, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I return the question back to you: why do you keep editing out / reverting other people's contributions? Which of their POV don't you like? Maybe the whole article doesn't deserve the POV tag. I don't mind if you move the tag away from the top of the article, as long as you add a section-POV tag in each section which has been the object to the edit war. The same applies to the other side. AugustinMa 13:10, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, you are the one who placed the tag, and according to WP:NPOVD#How to initiate an NPOV debate you are supposed to say why you think the article is unblanaced. My view of the article's balance is that it is very close to neutral. The remaining arguments comprise how and where to explain the Robert's Rules description of Australian preference voting, which this article has always held equivalent to IRV, and whether to state the plain fact that Arrow's Paradox says all ranked voting systems must fail some formal criteria. Since these points are being argued by an approval voting enthusiast, it is not unreasonable to conclude bias. Since you have turned the question back to me, I would give give that bias as a reason with which I agree. The bias tag belongs on the version you tagged. Acct4 13:48, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

The article is in fact balanced and neutral. It has come under attack by die-hard advocates of a different voting reform proposal who apparently seek to remove important facts about IRV that to their dismay make people like it (such as the fact that Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised 10th edition (RONR) describes it as superior to election by plurality). This important fact about RONR has been in the article for a very long time (probably since the beginning). The fact that one editor with an ax to grind repeatedly tries to censor this fact does not mean that the article exhibits biased POV. The analogy I used in the discussion was, if you insist that "3" is not a number, and keep removing it from the number line, and I keep putting it back in, that DOES mean there is a DISPUTE, but does not mean there is POV needing a compromise (what would that be? 3 is a number on Monday, Wednesday and Friday?) The article clearly needs arbitration, as Abd has shown no willingness to accept such documented, supported, and important facts. The article said RONR recommends IRV in mail elections...Abd objected..so I edited it to make clear RONR recommended "preferential voting" and detailed IRV as its only example...Abd objected...so I replaced the word "recommend" by directly quoting RONR that it is "useful and fair" and "preferable" to elections by plurality...Abd insisted that IRV was in some way different than Preferential voting as described, even though any political scientist who looks at this issue agrees. Perhaps you can find some neutral political scientist(s) who specializes in voting systems to review the article for neutrality.

One little point, by the way...On my web browser, IE, the placement of the POV banner has pushed all of the article down below the table of contents, so that the article appears to be absent or blank, unless one scrolls down several pages length. Until you figure out how to resolve this, can that be adjusted?

Tbouricius 14:31, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I believe I have fixed the formatting issue; please let me know if it is still a problem.

"Arbitration" is not appropriate in this case. The Arbitration Committee only adjudicates behavior disputes, not content disputes. And even if there is a legitimate grievance, according to Wikipedia dispute resolution rules, the dispute must still go through these steps first, in this order:

• Request for comment - takes about 1 to 3 weeks
• Mediation - anywhere from 1 to 4 months

So as you can see, arbitration is far off and I am confident it can be avoided. The dispute boils down to just two points of content, and those can both easily be resolved with an RFC. I would like to see if the parties can engage on the issue over the next few days before resorting to an RFC. Acct4 14:38, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Editors of this article since Sept 1

This is a summary of the activity of editors of this article since Sept 1. As this is intended to be, in substance, fact, except where opinion is so labelled, please edit it to correct or improve and expand it, but not to conceal any true fact. In this case, "true facts" should be proven by evidence easily accessible to any reader; what are allegations rather than facts may be included, but the evidence for them should be stated and the possibility of verification provided, or they should be clearly labelled as opinion or personal analysis.

The analysis provided is initially mine. Analysis is not asserted as fact, it is my opinion, so it should remain, and contrary analysis may be added. Please, each user, identify yourself if adding analysis, as I did. There is no harm in adding a note to the bottom, also attributed to yourself, "Agreement except as noted." Indeed, that could be quite useful. And, please, correct errors in this section!

User:Ask10questions

Analysis by Abd: political activist for voting security [6], openly opposed to IRV. Personally verified, believes that article has been maintained with bias.

Special:Contributions/72.75.8.161

Analysis by Abd: Rob Richie, Executive Director of FairVote, the main pro-IRV organization. Identified through his personal email from the block 72.75.x.x, style of writing, in possession of many recipients, known opinions, and consistent display of a high degree of knowledge of the subject and political nuance. This editor has appeared under the following IP addresses, and has used abusive 3RR-violating edits that would likely have gotten him a reprimand, at least, if he were using an account:

Special:Contributions/72.75.26.158

Special:Contributions/72.75.46.82

Special:Contributions/72.75.48.229

Special:Contributions/Mccready

Analysis by Abd: Active Wikipedian, copy edit.

Special:Contributions/172.189.100.145

Analysis by Abd: added criterion passed by IRV, added to Bucklin article criterion failed by Bucklin, added to Condorcet article a criterion failed by all Condorcet methods. Very likely pro-IRV, from the imbalance in the collection, but possibly neutral.

Special:Contributions/Kbolino

Analysis by Abd: Active Wikipedian. Possibly pedantic edit of article, arguably wrong, but revealing no position, and harmless.

Special:Contributions/Tomruen

Analysis by Abd: Active Wikipedian. Affiliated with FairVote Minnesota, IRV activist, see his user page. However, I've seen no abusive edits from him, thus more likely could be part of ultimate consensus.

Special:Contributions/Horologium

Analysis by Abd: Active Wikipedian. Apparently neutral "copy edit," improving accuracy. His work was, I think, taken out, because I think I attempted to make, later, more or less the same change against opposition, but I have not seen the actual edit that did it.

Special:Contributions/71.252.85.24

Analysis by Abd: unknown, single-access. Argument in reason for edit typical of FairVote cabal.

Special:Contributions/BenB4

Analysis by Abd: major abusive editor of IRV article. Sock puppet, Banned from Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/LossIsNotMore. Wikipedia lawyer, uses technical arguments to repress dissentiing opinion by newbies, does not apply similar arguments to pro content. See also Special:Contributions/Acct4 below.

Special:Contributions/Blayt

Analysis by Abd: Reverted deletion of his edits by Tom Ruen. Has only previously edited the IRV article, May 2 - May 7. This work, however, seems to be improper for the article, in my opinion, original research, proposal for variant of IRV, not encyclopedic. I'd be with Ruen on this, as well as with BenB4, for even a sock can get it right sometimes.

Special:Contributions/137.71.226.54

Analysis by Abd: Active Wikipedian (unusual for IP, must have fixed IP). Multiple Vandalism warnings, see Talk page for the IP user. Possibly neutral on this issue. Inserted content re IRV vulnerability to pushover strategy, that could be used in an anti-IRV argument, but showed no sign of being against IRV. Removed the references to tactical voting, later, himself, if I got it right.

Special:Contributions/207.191.138.14

Analysis by Abd: Active Wikipedian. Appears to be sock of the 137.71 user from the pattern of interests. Added "Is IRV an Improvement" section, appeared to be neutral. One edit only.

User:Tomruen logged out (mostly mine) - I'm neutral - hurray! Tom Ruen 19:15, 3 October 2007 (UTC))

Special:Contributions/Captain_Zyrain

Analysis by Abd: Active Wikipedian. Did some work on the STV article (possibly indirectly, through the Scott Ritchie user page). Added reference to Voting Methods in Robert's Rules, which has been very useful. Bias, if any, unknown.

Special:Contributions/71.252.90.177

Analysis by Abd: appears to be neutral.

Special:Contributions/Ramorum

Analysis by Abd: Added Con argument: "could weaken the two-party system." This is not evidence of any bias, because this is a known argument against IRV. It is also an argument advanced for IRV, obviously to different audiences. Much debate ensued.

Special:Contributions/CmdrObot

Analysis by Abd: Active Wikipedian, copy edit.

User:CmdrObot Robotic script spellchecker! Tom Ruen 19:15, 3 October 2007 (UTC))

Special:Contributions/Dhruvtanna

Analysis by Abd: minor edit.

Special:Contributions/Ark14

Analysis by Abd: 3 Wikipedia posts altogether, 2 here. One to correct founding date of Open_Voting_Consortium. No evidence of bias. Added information showing knowledge of IRV technical problems, however, as would be expected from someone with voting machine interest. I think this was removed. No problems allowed by cabal.

Special:Contributions/59.167.56.241

Analysis by Abd: one edit, added Pro argument matching Con previously added and, I think, removed. "could weaken the two-party system."

Special:Contributions/Abd

Analysis by Abd: Moi. Take a look at what I've been up to! A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I have a little knowledge about election methods, and, until my errors can be corrected, I may hold erroneous opinions. Unfortunately, most of those who have attempted to correct me have even less knowledge, too often, but there are exceptions, and at least one of these will pop up in this list of editors, and it is my hope that some more will be attracted here. Being assertive is how I learn, my toes have a distinct taste. I also have ADHD and can easily forget to log in, so see:

Special:Contributions/151.203.150.119 i.e., Abd

[[Special:Contributions/KVenzke]

Analysis by Abd: Member of WikiProject Voting systems, election methods expert. I'm unaware of any bias. He's corrected me many times on the Election Methods mailing list.

Special:Contributions/Kenckar

Analysis by Abd: 2 minor edits.

Special:Contributions/203.206.166.135

Analysis by Abd: sought globalization of article. Fan of Hare system (single-winner STV, called IRV in this article).

To be continued. I'd really rather see this as a special project page, cited here, but this is where I'm starting. All technical assistance is appreciated. This is a study of the editors of this article, as a first step toward understanding the situation. Please correct errors and add independent analysis where mine seems correct. Please sign all contributions; but anonymous editors may identify themselves by connecting their socks. Truly anonymous and isolated editors may find themselves ignored. But every editor has a right to be here, except those banned from Wikipedia. This means you, Acct4, but until you are formally banned -- it will happen when one of us, or another working in one of your many pies, gets sufficiently motivated to work through the channels, you may, of course, contribute here. WP:IAR

[Acct4 has been banned since this was first written, as a result of a 3RR complaint filed against me by a single-purpose account. Filing 3RR complaints can be dangerous for your health, if your own hands are not clean. From prior behavior, the filing user was almost certainly another sock for the user behind Acct4.]

Note that there were things going on with this article that an active, neutral, and fair editor, interested in Wikipedia NPOV, welcoming to newcomers not familiar with policies, would never have permitted, before I arrived. This has been the big problem, with this article, neglect by the people of NPOV. Hopefully, that era is over. Abd 17:30, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Modified, dispersed edits Abd 03:56, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Explanation for use of multiple reverts.

The article has a POV tag, and there have been multiple complaints about this, it is not just me. There is content which is either controversial,, in itself, or which is in the article in a manner creating an imbalance. It would seem that the editors are not in agreement; however, what must be noticed is that there are four apparent editors, probably three real editors, cooperating over a substantial period. Tbouricius just registered for Wikipedia and dove in here, and is showing what appears to be substantial knowledge of Wikipedia rules. That has two possible explanations: he's been running a crash course in the rules, which are extraordinarily complex, or he is a sock puppet. He is using his real name, but that doesn't mean that he hasn't been active here under another name. And he is clearly aligned and has joined this issue as a meat puppet. Since he is the only one actually using his real name, I welcomed him, and I continue to be grateful for his participation here. But his behavior has been offensive.

In another section here, I have begun to document and assemble complete information about the editors of the article. But the vast bulk of edits contrary to the work I've been doing have been done by a few editors, and they are all editors with a clear conflict of interest, or sock puppets.

I am, without regard to the normal 3RR restriction, accordingly, reverting the following, unless the edit seems harmless or, without controversy, improves the article.

Edits from 72.75.x.x, on two grounds: history of 3RR violations, clear bias shown in edits, i.e., editing out information reducing propaganda impact of the article with the only explanation being that the editor being reverted is allegedly a critic, and the use of IP editing in the presence of major controversy. He can remedy the latter problem by registering an account. We know who he is, though, and could prove it if necessary. The fact is that anyone who is knowledgeable about the field would strongly suspect it, once the possibility is raised. I certainly did not expect it, and it was just a hunch that led me to check my own email records. I have mail from him with the IP in question, so I have no personal doubt, hence I can testify as I have. He is Rob Richie, Executive Director of FairVote, with a clear conflict of interest, contrary to WP:COI.

Edits from User:Acct4 who is a blatant sock for the banned User:BenB4, himself a sock and with other associated socks. I am aware of some of these socks and will label and treat them similarly, but he wears cheap socks and discards them easily. I have not pursued a deeper ban for him, but I think it likely someone will, he's offending administrators right and left, and only the sheer crush of business keeps their attention off of him for a time.

Meanwhile, any editor may act as an administrator, using the available powers, and that is what I'm doing. I believe that my actions would be sustained by any administrator who investigates. If I'm wrong, I am not the center of the universe nor the only intelligent person on the planet. If I'm gone, others will replace me, and this is not a threat to gather meat puppets: I've scrupulously avoided that; rather, I've actually invited supporters of IRV to become active here. It's just a fact. (Meat puppetry is offensive in some contexts, in others, it is actually appropriate; what is wrong with meat puppetry would be an attempt to create a false appearance of consensus.)

As to edits from Tbouricius, I will be more cautious. As far as I'm concerned, he's the only real editor here who is opposing my work with an edit war. I will explicitly justify any reverts of his work, and will limit myself to as many reverts as he uses. Where he himself reverts with no further explanation, but merely asserts his right to maintain the status quo, as he has with the Robert's Rules issue, I will be less restrained. No editor owns this article, and the status quo has no presumption of primacy. Essentially, a history of abusive edits and lack of close attention caused the RR mention to be maintained. Closer attention showed it to be POV in effect. The most obvious aspect of this is the placement. When the mention was edited to make it fully accurate, this, of course, made it longer than appropriate for an introduction. It was not asserted that these edits added POV material, rather, they were asserted to be too complicated, or unnecessary, the underlying reasons for the edits was criticized as POV, but errors in the facts were not asserted. I justified each change based on actual quotations and citations.

Then I also moved the reference to deeper in the article. This struck at the heart of the cabal's intentions: to maintain the promotional value of the RR alleged recommendation. They could not allow this. At this point they abandoned all pretense of negotiation and the real edit war began. It's over *position* in the article! If this is not blatant POV manipulation, I don't know what is!

I have suggested this principle: nothing should be in the article that is controversial, unless tagged as such. This is, in fact, a basic Wikipedia principle. But they don't care about Wikipedia principles, it's been obvious from how the cabal maintained this article. That's changing, now. I know how to use personal power in the service of group consensus, I've done it on a national level in organizations, it's my expertise, in a sense. And my goal is, in fact, consensus, but it is necessary to stand up to those who don't want it to appear, and who will attempt to disrupt it when they fear what it will show. I have no idea what any specific outcome will be. I *serve* the consensus, I do not own it.

I am suggesting that we elect a "chair" to moderate disputes for this article, and I am serving as that chair, in a sense (in the use of reverts for a special class of editors who really should not be editing at all under these conditions) pending the election. I am not defining the election method, that will be up to the group that forms here. We *might* try, however, in this context, since an "election" here is only advisory, *all* methods. A Range ballot can be analyzed by using IRV or any other ranked method, and all that is necessary to make it fully an IRV ballot is to require that equally-rated nominees have a special rank marker. Wouldn't that be interesting? An all-method election. Thus it may produce multiple results: According to Range, it was A. According to IRV, it was B. The Condorcet winner was C. the Approval winner was D (Approval requires an approval cutoff, that's all). And there can be multiple "moderators," so we could also use STV, or reweighted range voting or, for that matter, Asset Voting, my favorite. *All of this can be done with a special Range ballot.*

Don't want me to serve as I am? Vote me out. Use good process and I'll accept it, that's a promise. But I have no obligation to accept the vote of sock puppets! Anyone can also complain about apparent 3RR violations. Acct4 -- I strongly suspect -- has already "warned" me on my Talk page. What a joke! He used a brand new account, showing all the marks of a new sock. (But without IP info, I wouldn't know if this was really him, even then he's smart enough to arrange for different IP).

Wikipedia is really beautiful, if still spotty. If I err, I might get a slap on the wrist, based on what I've seen. I'm willing to risk that. I am, in fact, claiming that I understand WP:IAR; but, to quote Dylan, "to live outside the rules you must be honest." Watch. See if I abuse the power I have claimed. All of you, in fact, have the same power!

Now, when I attempted to save this edit, I was notified that I was blocked. "You've finally done it!" I thought. But it was actually another beautiful example of how Wikipedia works. I followed the instructions and was promptly unblocked. The sheriff arrives and tells everyone involved, when it is not crystal clear, to shut up and sit down. Take a look at my Talk page, User_talk:Abd. And then look at the 3RR violation page and who complained. It was the sock BenB4 etc had created. That sock is now blocked, together with Acct4. Karma. But I think he doesn't care, at this point, he just moves to another internet cafe or whatever. Still, with enough of us active, it's harmless. I cannot continue as the Lone Ranger here, it's improper. In any case, the article has now been protected against sock puppets; not necessarily against meat puppets. It's up to us to deal with that.

And, anyone, if I'm doing it wrong, if there is a better way, I'm all ears. Abd

edit, again, Robert's Rules mention and remove Arrow's theorem mention.

I have again removed the reference to the alleged recommendation of IRV by Robert's rules from the introduction to the interior of the article. I have explained the reasons for this in detail previously, but it began an edit war, the upshot of which was that the other editors active on it were blocked by Wikipedia admin; not at my request. (The sock puppet lacky of the cabal attempted to get me banned. Admin looked at the request and the data and banned *him*, and also, to prevent what had been repeated entries into the editing process from sock puppets and a newly registered user with a blatant conflict of interest who dove into essentially reverting my edits, blocked him and all newly registered users temporarily.) I have had no contact with this administrator who did this and it was not based on any request from me, and I regret the inconvenience to Mr. Bouricius, but would also recommend to him that in the future he refrain from acting as if he and his friends own the article. Further, he remains free to contribute to Talk and I intend to assist him in editing the article, though not at the expense of removing POV material. He is an editor with a blatant Conflict of Interest, and should have taken a more conservative approach from the beginning. Nevertheless, I had welcomed him to Wikipedia and hope that he can participate in the constructive improvement of this article. There is much work to do.

(And, of course, Tom Ruen remains unaffected by all this, though he has clearly revealed himself to be what his user page shows: an editor with a Conflict of Interest, so I'd suggest he treat lightly. I personally welcome his participation and he did not participate in any clear way in the abuses that took place here, but neither did he intervene to stop them when he had the opportunity. I'd suggest that it may be because the sock puppet and the "anonymous" editor were serving his purposes, so he did not have to take the risks himself. But I would think it a loss if he were to be excluded.

The reason for moving the reference to Robert's Rules is two-fold: first, it is not essential to a summary understanding of Robert's Rules and thus does not belong in the Introduction, and only an advocate for IRV would stubbornly insist upon that position as was done in this edit war. They know that much of the public will only read the introduction, and obviously considered the reference there as essential. This is an entirely separate issue from whether or not the claim is true. It is not appropriate that Wikipedia articles be crafted for political effect.

And then I also restored my previously reverted edits that made the mention, as far as I can tell, more accurate. No objection was made, during the edit war, that what I had put in was incorrect or wrong; rather the claim was that it was unnecessary, and that I was attempting to maintain a distinction without a difference. However, from my point of view, the reference to Robert's Rules was incorrect or deceptive without specifying what is in Robert's Rules more precisely. Again, what is proper here if I have erred in that language is to correct it, not to simply delete it and restore what was less specific. Again, to me, the goal of the edits by the COI editors and the sock puppet was quite apparent: a desire to maintain the impression of a clear recommendation by Robert's Rules, which is certainly prestigious, when, in fact, the opinion of Robert's Rules about what it describes is mixed, and, further, the method uses a different definition of "majority" than is used in what the article describes for "IRV." Robert's Rules is not recommending "IRV," but, rather, "preference voting," a class of methods, and the method they describe is *close* to IRV. And I think my wording is correct on that. That, again, all this became the subject of an edit war showed how important was the FairVote cabal thought the Robert's Rules mention, as they had enjoyed it for a long time, to their agenda. And they have an agenda that is not encyclopedic, but the encyclopedia can benefit from their expertise, and we may wish them well in what is good about their political efforts. Wikipedia, however, cannot support those efforts beyond helping with neutral education of the public.

I also removed the direct link to the Robert's Rules excerpt on the FairVote site. That excerpt is prefaced with an "explanation" that was so effective at leading to the desired conclusion that I was myself deceived by it, for a long time, reading the excerpt after having read their introduction. There is no need for that link to be here, since it is linked from the article which is linked in this paragraph. Then, with the other article, we, or other editors, can address the possible abuse involved in how the excerpt is quoted. One day at a time.

Ah, yes, Arrow's Theorem. Arrows Theorem is, again, referenced and explained in the linked article on Voting Systems Criteria. Other election method articles do not make this comment about Arrow's Theorem, and the link that is there will lead the reader to it. Why did they want this so badly? Well, again, to anyone familiar with the field and the politics of it, the mention of Arrow's Theorem is used to discount the impact of information that IRV fails certain election criteria. It's an attempt to frame and spin the criteria information. Again, this spin is inappropriate. It's not a matter of whether or not the claim about Arrow's theorem that was being made here is true. Once again, I attempted to edit it to make the claim here true; that was not enough for the cabal, they wanted to keep the clearly controversial -- or just plain incorrect -- claim. As with the Robert's Rules mention, the presence of the material, clearly not essential to the article, was desired for its political effect. One could expect those who are (1) employed in the promotion of IRV, or (2) consultants for the advoccy organization, or (3) explicitly affiliated with an affiliated local advocacy organization, would think that this belongs in the article. This is precisely why special restraint is expected of editors with a Conflict of Interest. Such editors can still participate, in my opinion, but for them to presume a kind of ownership over this article was beyond the pale, and that is what they did, and they had been doing it for a long time, see History, where a common reason for reverting changes was that the editor reverted was a critic of IRV. Which is *never* a legitimate reason for reverting an edit, in itself. One might note that I refrained from reverting harmless or helpful changes even by sock puppets; similar restraint was not observed by Rob Richie, who was so eager to take out everything I had done that he even took out an edit by his meat puppet, the sock Acct4, now indefinitely banned. What goes around comes around.

Abd 01:48, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Removal of allegation re Condorcet Winner and runoff methods.

In the Con section, I removed most of the effect of an edit. The editor has a conflict of interest, which is never a proper reason to counter his edit, but does suggest special care. This was a pro dilution of a con argument; what was inserted is not what would be inserted by someone making the con argument, quite likely. And it happens to be untrue, and it's obvious. If the runoff system is designed such that a Condorcet winner will be among those candidates involved in the runoff, then the system can, presuming that the runoff itself will always elect a maintained Condorcet winner, be Condorcet compliant. The editor was thinking of IRV or standard top-two runoff. Careless claims are common from editors with a Conflict of Interest, because they are pleased to find a pro argument and can thus be less skeptical about it.

(For a real example of a proposed election method that is Condorcet compliant, take Range with pairwise analysis, using the Range ballot as a ranked ballot, so that, if they differ, there is a runoff between the Range winner and a Condorcet winner. While specific simulations have not been run on this method, they have been run on Range with top-two runoff and, contrary to the expectations of some, the average voter satisfaction is higher with this, because it partially compensates for distortions of expressed satisfaction coming from strategic exaggeration or normalization effects. Further, I expect, the preference strength test implicit in an actual runoff favors a conversion of the Range winner, if legitimately so, into the preference winner. This is, of course, original research, unpublished and unconfirmed, I would not dare insert it into a Wikipedia article; but it's a counterexample to Ruen's claim.) Abd 02:28, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I wanted to differentiate arguments used by plurality-advocates vs Condorcet-advocates. Plurality and top-two runoff can't guarantee election of a Condorcet winner. I don't believe any runoff system (even repeated balloting can guarantee a Condorcer winner will rise). The whole PURPOSE of runoffs is to convince people to "compromise up" to plurality stronger choices and if the Condorcet candidate has low early support he can't rise due to this apparent plurality weakness that runoffs measure. I'm fully IN FAVOR of a Condorcet style election to get a Condorcet winner. I consider this a clear and CON argument for those who prefer Condorcet methods, and it is the argument I DO use. I don't know why you're talking about Range voting at all. Tom Ruen 03:36, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I am thinking that we should move the arguments out of the article to a new article specifically about the debate over Instant Runoff Voting. What Instant Runoff Voting is and where it is used and details about that are appropriate for this article. The controversy is really a separate topic. I'd like to hear comment on that before I start to implement it. Tom's comment about plurality and top-two is true, they aren't Condorcet compliant. I mentioned Range Voting simply as an *example* of a runoff method -- that is, a method which uses an actual runoff under some circumstances, roughly analogous to top-two, contrary to the claim he made. Yes, I think it would be, relatively speaking, a crackerjack method, but, in fact, what I favor is pure deliberative process and consensus as a goal with majority vote as an absolute minimum. Unless voters change their preferences, the Range/PW method will choose the Condorcet winner because that winner will be in the top two. I find the argument above convoluted, and what I wrote about the "pro dilution of a con argument" still seems to stand, for me. Why does it need to be there?

the whole comparison between voting methods thing is dicey as part of the article. Again, that properly could be a separate article. Abd 04:40, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I've never heard of a "range runoff", never see anything ever on such an idea, and it seems extremely manipulation prone - giving false support in early rounds risk-free to feign strength that doesn't exist.

Range with runoff is a theoretical method, though, in fact, deliberative process is similar to it. As to manipulation, it is common for IRV advocates to place more weight on theories about "manipulation," than any way to objectively compare election methods. It's almost entirely speculation. The method was not understood. It would be similar to a top-two runoff, except that the two would be the Range winner and a candidate who beats the Range winner pairwise by preference analysis. The simulations on which my comment about top-two runoff were based included so-called strategic voting (strategic voting in Range has a different meaning from strategic voting in ranked methods, this is all part of the smoke that obscures the matter for many).

But my goal here is not, at all, to debate election methods, this is all dicta. The point is that you have no source for the claim that no runoff method could be Condorcet compliant; and the obvious counterexample would be any Condorcet method that also picks another candidate who becomes the alternate nominee for the runoff. So with the example I gave, the pairwise analysis picks the Condorcet winner, if there is one, and the Range analysis picks the overall voter satisfaction winner, and then the runoff allows the electorate to make an explicit choice. Satisfies the Majority Criterion as well. And it would actually be fairly easy to implement, if we only need to look for a pairwise victor over the Range winner. From what I see, it actually dilutes the incentive for exaggerated voting that some will have, but incentivizes the expression of *some* preference at the top.... just in case you are interested. There is a whole world of analysis of election methods that is outside your ken, as far as I can tell. I'm not blaming you, not everyone is interested in such and many have better things to do.

YES I am a BAD BAD Wikipedia. I actually use my mind and write obvious truth without regards to references. Everyonce in a while I'm in danger of overgeneralization I'm sure. I do have to laugh at your theoretical method, must be pretty new since I can find no references for it either. I'm not a great theory person, except looking for patterns and examples. I'm not a good practical person because I'd rather see many sides than judge one side best. However practice has taught me (in actual repeated ballotings used in political conventions) that tactical manipulation is a REAL effect in repeated balloting and such things have SOME effect in single-vote methods but would be insanely powerful in a range voting method, especially with any sort of forced elimination. That you use such examples tells me you are inexperienced and talking nonsense and that I ought not be impressed by your arguments that ANYONE IN THE WORLD would hear the word runoff for a single winner election and think this means anything besides a single-vote system. Anyway, I'll be nice and just put back plurality and two round system which you have conceded. Tom Ruen 16:20, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Setting aside what is irrelevant here, there is nothing left to say. But I never let that discourage me! :-) Much of what Mr. Ruen says is true, but narrow. He thinks I'm inexperienced. I've experienced situations that he has never dreamed of. And I have a lot more years of this than Tom. Gives me no special rights, but I'd suggest that some caution might be in order when someone who is a good chunk of twice as old as you says something you don't understand.... Ruen made a general statement about election methods, which, as a general statement, was incorrect. Specify it, as it seems he may have, it becomes correct and my specific objection disappears. There is still a question of balance, but we will address that later.

I'd like the section to stay AND glad it focuses on comparison to existing methods actually used. People considering IRV are interesting to know how its different and the same from what is used now. MYSELF, I'm unable to read long paragraphs online (laziness?) so bullet points are MORE important to me than anything. Tom Ruen 04:49, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

If you are engaged in political campaigns to replace method A with method B, then you will be specifically interested in information comparing A with B. And I agree that such information should be in Wikipedia, but it is a hotly debated subject, so bringing it in requires the utmost of caution. It is better that it not be here than that it be here with some slant. And focusing on IRV vs. Plurality or Top-Two runoff is slanted, in that it may also be a reasonable possibility to replace A with C or D or E. Properly handled, all reasonable pairwise comparisons would be covered, somewhere. It's a piece of work, and Scott Ritchie may have his own opinions and suggestions about it. Bullet points are great, when there is no controversy. What a political activist may have trouble understanding is that sound bites and bullet points are part of the problem; they are devices for simplifying issues, and when someone simplifies issues for you, watch your wallet. Absolutely, we need simplification, we cannot all be experts on everything, but .... those who simplify, if we are not to be at the mercy of media manipulators, including political activists of all stripes, must be thoroughly trustworthy. Hence the *crucial* importance of this community not only being NPOV, but also including all those stripes, for without the differing views, a true synthesis cannot arise. Tom, your views are important here, as are those of Mr. Bouricius and Mr. Richie. However, speaking for the community as I see it, we cannot allow your activism to control the formation of consensus that a mature article represents. Quite simply, you and your friends had no right to, on your own, define who was cogent and who was not. And, especially, you had no right to effectively exclude from participation editors merely because they were critics or "advocates of other methods." It's the *content* that is the issue, not the motive, and that question comes up in another section today. Abd 20:09, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Scott Ritchie has agreed to, when he can find time, help clean up the article. His article on STV was a featured article, and it is quite good. Tom, I was sincere when I welcomed Terrill Bouricius and disappointed when he insisted on owning the article. You did not do good by encouraging him to "defend" the article, particularly when what he was defending was political nuance, spin, presenting information to make IRV look good, as distinct from clearly informing people. It's been practically my whole complaint about FairVote; attempts by our friends in the election methods community were attempting to reach out to FairVote to try to work with them, and, essentially, they were blown off, dismissed as politically naive and irrelevant. That is not good politics! Richie is very good at crafting nuance and manipulating impressions. And not actually very good at building consensus, he and FairVote are going to find increasing difficulty and opposition as a result. Richie's behavior here was abominable. The director of what was the Center for Voting and Democracy, a clear opponent of free speech? Applying a double standard, hacking away at small criticisms and inconvenient information, while swallowing a camel with pro arguments and spin? Doing it all anonymously? He shouldn't have been doing it at all, he had a blatant Conflict of Interest, not even close to being controversial. As do you. But I did not file any complaints on that, because I'd actually prefer you to participate. As long as you don't do what Richie was doing ... and you haven't. Abd 05:17, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Your paragraph is sloppy, specifically between Scott Ritchie whom you start with and Rob Richie whom I assume you are referencing later. I offer this probably unneededed comment if anyone else is reading and is confused. Tom Ruen 16:13, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Sloppy is my middle name. Thanks for making that clear about Richie/Ritchie, who are indeed two quite different people; it's quite true that a reader might think I had made a simple spelling error. Scott Ritchie is an election methods expert and active Wikipedian. Rob Richie is the Executive Director of FairVote. Abd 20:09, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

How the article came to be protected and socks and meat puppet blocked

Since it is not easy to find, here is a copy of the 3RR report and resolution that resulted in the partial block on the article and the blocking of some editors:

From Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/3RR

User:Abd reported by User:P-j-t-a (Result: Semi-prot., indef blocked P-j-t-a (and others))

Three-revert rule violation on Instant-runoff voting (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs). Abd (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log): Time reported: 14:21, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

• Previous version reverted to: 03:38, 2 October 2007
  • Note that the section on "Voting methods in Robert's Rules of Order" is reverted each time, even if other parts are not reverted to that exact version.

• 1st revert: 13:36, 2 October 2007
• 2nd revert: 16:18, 2 October 2007
• 3rd revert: 19:43, 2 October 2007
• 4th revert: 04:16, 3 October 2007
• 5th revert: 06:38, 3 October 2007

• Diff of 3RR warning: 20:30, 2 October 2007
  • Earlier proof that user is aware of the 3RR: 06:21, 28 September 2007 - note also the removal of administrator comments from this page.

Abd has accused me (while I was editing from my IP address) of POV-pushing for the Center for Voting and Democracy, with which I have only had a passing acquaintance several years ago. I was concerned about my IP address being associated with his accusations, and so I created this account. After I warned him that he violated 3RR, Abd accused me of being a sockpuppet, just as he has accused at least two other users and IPs. Beyond the accusations, Abd insists on his version against consensus. Abd is apparently an advocate of Approval voting, a competing method. He insists that the description of the new Robert's Rules of Order which recommends IRV in some circumstances be phrased in such a way as to downplay it, and removed from the lead where it has been for months at least. He also insists on removing mention of Arrow's impossibility theorem which states that all ranked election methods fail some formal criteria. In his zeal, he has broken 3RR several times. I warned him yesterday, and as you can see from the other link above that he certainly knows about it.

Even though he is on his 5th revert, I don't believe a lengthy block is necessary. I should think that a short block would let him know that 3RR is a serious rule and would help him be more careful about it in the future. P-j-t-a 14:21, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Article semi-protected and reporter (and others) blocked for being sockpuppets. Abd was protecting the article from sockpuppets. -- tariqabjotu 18:24, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

[New comment added for Talk:Instant-runoff Voting:]

P-j-t-a was almost certainly lying about the "while I was editing from my IP address." My reference to editing from 72.75.x.x is the only thing I can think of that makes sense, and that address I have firmly and clearly identified with Rob Richie, Executive Director of FairVote, from personal email. Alternatively, he is an employee or volunteer at FairVote, using the office network and internet access, in which case the statement about CVD (the old name for FairVote, and I did not use the old name, as far as I recall, so he knew enough to bring that in!) was a lie. I have left enough descriptions laying about for admin to find that I felt reasonably secure that if the situation attracted an administrator, the administrator would figure it out. I *was* concerned that a knee-jerk response to 3RR would take place, it can happen; however, that isn't what happened. The administrator had to check the warning p-j-t-a had placed on my Talk page, and, naturally, there was a succinct statement of the problem there, including mention that p-j-t-a was a single purpose account, the admin would have had to be pretty dim to not get the significance. In addition, I had proof of acct4 being a sock puppet, and had the evidence of frequent 3RR violation, without excuse, by Rob Richie. So p-j-t-a essentially grabbed an admin by the collar and showed him the evidence that would get him and his matching socks banned. And, of course, also taken out by the response was Tbouricius and, probably, the Richie access. I'm not sure about that, I have no way to check an IP block ban, as far as I know, but Richie is using, here, the account of, presumably, a friend. This, itself, could be a violation of Wikipedia policy. Am I going to complain about it? No. Why should I? It was not *my* decision to block Richie. It was an administrator who had no axe to grind, and who followed Wikipedia policy.

I am now acting, in a sense, as an ad hoc advisor to this "meeting." Were I the "chair," it would be my duty to advise members who have something they want to do, instead of simply "ruling them out of order," to tell them how to do what they want to do within the rules. So if you have been blocked, there are procedures for appealing the block. It's actually pretty easy. Quite properly, the administrator also blocked me. It took no more than a couple of minutes to get unblocked, because I had all the ducks in a row. Next time, I might not be so lucky, it depends on whose attention is first attracted. The Wikipedia system, at this point, is flawed and erratic, case-by-case, but deeply beautiful, and it keeps getting better, like the articles. I may be shifting my efforts from election methods to Wikipedia process, because I do have some ideas with possible application here, solutions to the "governmental" problem, and, in fact, this is what I've mostly been writing about for years.

What was p-j-t-a doing by lying about the IP address? That was a disposable, single-use account. I think he was trying to deflect the identification of that IP-reverting account with Richie by claiming it for himself. But he also made a crucial mistake, if the administrator looked at it. He had made a grammatical error in his description of the situation. He came back and edited it, while logged in as acct4. Big red flag waving "I'm a sock puppet." As if it wasn't clear already from the utter coincidence of acct4's interests with those of User:BenB4, who had already been blocked by this time. Oh, what a tangled, tangled web....

By allowing Abd, a vocal opponent of IRV who is completely and transparently off-base in some of his edits like the one Robert's Rules, Wikipedia administrators are making a remarkable error in judgment. Why give a zealous advocate of range voting and approval voting (although the listserv of the latter has banned him due to his conduct on their listsrv) a free rein in changing an article that would have held up well in some traditional Encyclopedia? This is bizarre. - Rob Richie, FairVote —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.7.37.54 (talk) 16:37, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

There is process on Wikipedia for dealing with various forms of abuse, including Conflict of Interest, sock puppetry and meat puppetry, WP:3RR violations, and so forth. The process can be confusing and difficult to follow, and much can be done to improve it. However, if Mr. Richie believes that I have abused my "authority" as an editor of this article, he is completely welcome to file a complaint. However, he might take pause: his sock puppet friends and his "meat puppet" (I do not mean to insult Mr. Bouricius, but that's the Wikipedia term for what apparently happened here) were blocked because the sock puppet User:Acct4 filed a 3RR complaint against me, under a newly registered account, as described above. And look at my own talk page, under User:Abd. You can see the warning that was issued to me by this sock puppet. Look at the sock puppet User:p-j-t-a Talk page to see some activity on this, I just added a comment there. What was going on with this article was thoroughly outrageous. And those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. If I acted abusively, file a complaint or SHUT UP! (Seriously, you don't have to shut up. This is Wikipedia.) Wikipedia is a consensus community, in certain respects, a republic in others. I find it fascinating and, indeed, a confirmation of some of my own structural theories. The article was (and still is) biased, POV, but often in a subtle way, a way that Mr. Richie is a master of, the art of political debate, essentially, which involves framing arguments and disputes in a way that biases the outcome the way one wants. It was blatant; indeed, I may write a paper on it, it was such a good example. Quite a bit of work remains to be done.

Mr. Richie was logging in anonymously and flagrantly violating 3RR, bad enough when done by a logged-in editor, but completely beyond the pale when done by an anonymous editor, not even considering the flagrant Conflict of Interest that Mr. Richie had. Do I have a conflict of interest? Possibly. Not in a formal sense, as does Mr. Richie. I have opinions. And I take action in the world on them. That does *not* make me a COI editor, though it does mean that what I assert may be slanted. And that is why we have more than one editor for an article, why it must be the *community* which determines what is to be in the article and what is not. I intervened here to make that point.

The sock puppet BenB4 was a fan of the famous WP:IAR Ignore All Rules. But he did not understand what it means. It is deep and subtle and sophisticated, and easily misunderstood. Dylan said it when he wrote "To live outside the law you must be honest." It also is a simple reassertion of the common-law principle that public policy can trump the letter of the law. On the face, I violated 3RR myself, and I risked being blocked. But I took great pains to document what I was doing, and to make sure than when an administrator intervened, the administrator would see the situation. It could have failed. Administrators make snap judgments, and frequently they err. It is the nature of Wikipedia now. But errors can be corrected. Was the article hacked up as a result? Mr. Richie, do you really think the placement of Robert's Rules in the middle of the article instead of the introduction was such a huge POV hack of mine as to be worth what your people risked -- and lost? Instead of using the relative freedom brought in by the severe cutback of the cabal to turn the article into my own soapbox, what have I done? Please, if I have done something to the article that harms true understanding, ask any editor to fix it even if you can't yourself. From the beginning, though, your objections were to *me* as an editor, not to what I was editing. You warned me of an edit war in private correspondence if I dared to edit the article, and your people made sure it happened. It came back to bite you. As, more or less, I expected. All I had to do was act as anyone could have acted, and your response brought the attention necessary to interrupt your hegemony.

There is collateral damage, and that is unfortunate. I have made some comments in certain places that might help lead to Mr. Bouricius recovering his access. But I did not complain about him, I did not try to get him banned, rather his own actions -- and inactions -- brought it upon him.

And I do notice that I have mentioned many times that Mr. Richie was the anonymous reverting editor. His silence on that is, essentially, public confirmation of it. This was flagrant. And he wants to complain about ... what? What did I do?

Yes, I know what I did. At least temporarily, I broke his improper and oppressive control over an important political asset, the Wikipedia article. I did not do this to replace it with my own control, I don't want that control. I did it in the public interest, in the cause of promoting the formation of consensus about all these issues.

Does motive matter?

No is the short answer, however, motive is of interest in how edits come to exist. If a known opponent of Instant Runoff Voting, for example, edits the article, one may properly pay extra attention to the possibility that some agenda is being pursued by that edit. Does the wording create a slant? However, a critic may quite legitimately edit an article to *remove* a slant found objectionable. Introducing a slant is improper, removing one is proper; this is more likely to be done by a critic than a proponent. Would that it were otherwise, we'd have a better world! Abd 03:19, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I have used Wikipedia for a number of years, since long before my own employment with FairVote began and ended. The controversy over this article calls for adjudication on the basis of intent. For researchers, Wikipedia almost universally has become "a great place to start." That status derives from its character as a collective intellectual project that is underpinned by commitments to positivism and intellectual honesty.

Nice language. Just the kind of person to get a job at FairVote. I will assume, here, that it is Jackms actually writing. contribs, Richie just used the same account to post here. I don't think Positivism is an official policy here. There is actually a higher standard. I suggest a review of WP:IAR. The higher standard is the consensus of the community. Abd 03:19, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

In my time with CVD, I strongly advocated against deleting information about genuine theoretical deficiencies in instant runoff voting.

Would that your advocacy had become FairVote policy. Abd 03:19, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Certain revisions to this article have not been grounded in commitment to positivsm and intellectual honesty. They have not been intended to serve the collective intellectual project. They have been explicit attempts to make the site a propaganda vehicle.

If it is "explicit," then the evidence better be pretty strong. Jackms quotes a mail of mine, taking one small comment out of context. The complete thread should be read. It happens to give the history of how I came to take an interest in this article. If you read the entire thread, you will see that my motive was confined to *eliminating* the advocacy control of this article as a FairVote propaganda tool, by firmly asserting that the article must be WP:NPOV, which includes such matters as slant or balance. The article was blatantly unbalanced, and still is, and the imbalance was being maintained by a cabal of editors, being Richie himself, as the anonymous editor at 72.75.x.x, with many reverts, the sock puppet contribs, the matching sock Special:Contributions/Acct4. So far, what I'm writing is a matter of certainty. Then there was Special:Contributions/Tbouricius, who apparently registered to enter the fray (that makes him a meat puppet in Wikipediaspeak), and Special:Contributions/Tomruen who assisted but who did not personally violate policy except through the routine practice of editing to keep his own POV represented. Nobody gets blocked for that! The most serious thing that Tom Ruen did was to *not* intervene in the presence of blatant violations of policy by the others. Believe me, if some anti-IRV sock puppet started hacking the article, I'd stand up to it. I care far more about the truth and consensus process than I do about my opinions. Tom wrote:

Talk:Instant-runoff_voting#Spate_of_reverts_contrary_to_3RR_and_consensus I want nothing to do with this fight, although I do have opinions, I'll will see if I can take Mr. Happy drug and stay away! Tom Ruen 01:53, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Tom stayed away, and this preserved his access to editing this article, on the one hand, but it would have been far better, if he understood Wikipedia, if he had intervened to establish the principles involved. Abusive edits were being made, by an anonymous editor. Sorry, it was blatant, and Tom's position was revealed by his deliberate inaction. It left me practically alone to do the reverts involved, which is why I had to risk 3RR violation. And I was not willing to call in the meat puppets. Instead, I began the process of attracting neutral editors. Many knowledgeable people had learned to simply stay away from the article, since their work, if it didn't accord with the FairVote agenda, would simply disappear. Imagine how discouraging it is to work hard to collect some references, take the time to put them up with proper formatting and all that, then see them disappear in a flash, sometimes with only abusive comment, or for allegedly not dotting the i's and crossing the t's. Experienced editors on Wikipedia are supposed to *assist* newcomers in accomplishing what is legitimate from what they want to do, and being a critic is not a disqualification for receiving that assistance. Tom fell flat on his face, as far as his moral duty was concerned. Abd 03:19, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I am not obligated to review every edit, and found it rather overwhelming to follow the debate in detail - let the high-edit newbies get bitten if it slows them down when there's disagreement is a fair motto for me. I certainly saw much more reverting than I'm confortable with, BUT NEITHER do I continue editing when I'm reverted - being reverted is't a slap - it's a stop sign, even if I don't use it. I do disagree with anonymous edits/reverts. Besides clear vandalism, I generally don't revert, and try to discuss first, or worst, copy/move text I don't like to the talk page for consideration. I PREFER to stay away from high-edit pages, except to do minor improvements or when I get pissed off and need to take some sort of stand as I've tried now. Tom Ruen 04:55, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

On Friday September 28, a message was sent via the Election-Methods listserv that is no longer visible in the archive. The absence of evidence of this message's existence does not matter; the link it cites is problematic enough. Said message read (e-mail address deleted by me):

Abd ul-Rahman Lomax [e-mail deleted]

Fri Sep 28 19:34:59 PDT 2007

- posted this to range voting listserv about wanting to go over me personally

Oops! This is Richie writing, not Jackms! Damn! Lying again! If I was on the board of FairVote, I'd be telling Richie to turn all this over to someone else. He's not good in this hot environment, he blows his cover all too easily. Abd 03:19, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Oops myself! Looking at this again, what I see is that Jackms apparently did was to quote a mail from Richie to him. So, while it was indeed Richie writing, that was only the mail quoted, and we can distinguish it from what Jackms himself wrote. Jack, this wasn't clear, and after having been practically buried in sock puppets and Richie himself logging in anonymously and hacking away at the article -- claiming all the while to me in private email that he had no major involvement in this article -- I've become a bit suspicious of everything associated with him. From subsequent posts, it's quite clear that Jackms is not Richie, even if he is in some sense associated with him and even if he has been requested by Richie to intervene here. As far as I'm concerned, he's quite welcome. Abd 02:19, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RangeVoting/message/6021

The referenced page is a post to another listserv. In that post, Lomax spells out his intention to "irritate Rob Richie" on the grounds that "the benefits [of said strategy] are already appearing."

This belongs in late-night posts to remote discussion boards - not in a research-oriented site that's "a great place to start." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jackms (talk • contribs) 17:24, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

http://www.opensubscriber.com/message/election-methods@lists.electorama.com/7637183.html

Is the thread that brought me here.

The post to the Range list cited by Richie is still there. It contains the allegedly objectionable quotation. However, I suggest reading the original absent the frame that Richie has placed around it.

http://www.opensubscriber.com/message/election-methods@lists.electorama.com/7637748.html is the post where I decide to take a look at the article. "We" and "Us" in that article refers to those interested in election methods, not some faction or advocacy group. If one reads the entire set of messages, it should be clear that my strategy to "irritate" Richie was confined to countering his propaganda by neutralizing it with facts and exposing his manipulations of evidence, his skillful techniques of framing facts and arguments to lead to his desired conclusions. We see this here, with this article, and we can see what very specific wording and manner of presenting the evidence was considered important to him and the rest of the cabal. They wanted to use the language "overall majority," instead of "majority," even though the latter was more accurate (overall majority would refer to a majority of *all* votes cast, not to only those on unexhausted ballots), because the assertion that IRV guarantees a majority winner is a constant theme in their campaign propaganda. Even though it is blatantly false, that is, it does so by a trick. A majority of those left standing after inconvenient ballots are discarded. Robert's Rules, again, considers those ballots part of the majority, that's the critical point about why the claim that Robert's Rules recommends "IRV" was inaccurate, and they could not tolerate this being made clear in the Robert's Rules reference. I *added* qualifying and explanatory material that was not false and not deceptive -- this was never alleged -- and it was continually taken out by the cabal.

There was -- and still is, a whole complex strategy, developed by FairVote, of presenting and framing information to generate the desired spin. I consider this to be very much a part of the political problem, and I consider the spinmasters to be enemies of truth. My outside political strategy is not really relevant here, however. That strategy did lead me here, but I consider myself restricted, here, to bringing balance to the article, and I am attempting to bring in knowledgeable editors to assist, people like Scott Ritchie. I don't know Mr. Ritchie's position on IRV, and I've been careful not to try to recruit, say, Range Voting advocates, to come here. I did suggest that people interested in election methods come, but have specifically invited supporters of IRV to come. Rob Richie does not understand people like me. He thinks that my activity is merely supporting the status quo. Time will tell, won't it? What is going on here on Wikipedia is much more important than any mere voting method! Better voting methods, great, but that's not the real answer, IRV will not end the two-party hegemony, it will not end the corrupt influence of campaign finance, and it will not solve the basic problem that most people don't have time to penetrate the issues. We *can* solve these problems! And we can do it without attacking the two-party system, campaign finance, or voter apathy, these are not actually the enemies, they are symptoms. We can *bypass* those limitations. Enough for today. Abd 03:19, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

<<STANDING ON SLIPPERY SOAPBOX>> I must admit your passion disturbs me. I have no reason to believe FairVote people are not sincere. I believe you're sincere too. I don't understand why IRV is your enemy. Do you see IRV supporters editing Range voting pages? Wikipedia isn't a political forum for reform. I accept there's (virtual) TONS of articles that is biased and deserves some wider (GENTLE) criticism and challenge. I accept people in support of something will feel ownership over it and not want it trashed by half-thoughts by someone who has a clear agenda to weaken it. I don't approve of this (over-protectionism), but I understand it and I wish to respect people who believe in something.

IRV is not my enemy. How could it be? It's just a voting system, for crying out loud! Frankly, Tom, you are showing that you are thinking in terms of us and them. You put me with the "Range Voting" crowd. Yes, I've seen IRV supporters editing the Range Voting page. So? Absolutely, Wikipedia is not a "political platform for reform." Frankly, to me, Wikipedia itself is a much deeper reform than mere voting method.... but it is also just an encyclopedia. If you look back over my edits, what I was "weakening" was spin, propaganda, facts or claims framed and presented for political effect. The Robert's Rules issue was a perfect example. I added text to make the reference to Robert's Rules fully accurate and true. That was objectionable! It was, in the words of User:Tbouricius, "arcane." He did not claim that it was inaccurate. There is a difference between what Robert's Rules "describes" and what is described in this article as IRV, and it happens to be a difference that would be important to any parliamentarian. It may be *politically* unimportant, but ... what was the problem with my edit? The problem was that it took away a political tool, a ready "recommendation" for IRV, right in the introduction. The cabal consistently did not acknowledge that NPOV requires *balance,* not merely accuracy. Abd 06:11, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I believe IRV is no better than a two round system, both debatable equal steps away from than plurality, with no other rivals that respect plurality strength. However much I can smile towards Condorcet, I'm not willing to defend it politically. And I'm certainly not willing to defend range/approval politically, whatever pretty sincerity it offers. Let the student councils and science boards play their election method games in harmless realms for practice. IRV is for politics because politics is about power and plurality is ALL about power for those most organized to control the results. IRV is a laughably small reform, while Proportional-representation stands as the real reform test to tradition, and there Condorcet/approcal/range all fall down as equally token reforms of little difference. <<CLIMBING DOWN>> Tom Ruen 05:21, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Look, Tom, I have a long term, effective solution. It is not a voting method, though it can be used as one. See my user page if you are interested. I've succeeded in signing on most of the Range Voting core people, and others as well, most except for Warren Smith, himself, who doesn't get it. In the world of present politics, though, which is not my core interest, I propose a very simple reform. Count All the Votes. You can call that Approval Voting, but it has nothing to do with Approval, i.e., with whether or not you approve of the candidates. It's a voting method, a method for citizens to exert power, that's all. Just Count All the Votes. It is not proposed, by me, as the best voting method. It just happens to be cheap, simple, and, in fact, quite a good method. Bucklin Voting existed in this country for some years, and it worked, contrary to FairVote propaganda. I don't think you realize how deeply they have gone in spinning the science of election methods and the history of voting. It's all been framed according to the conclusions that they want us to make. Bucklin is Instant Runoff Approval, it deserves the name Instant Runoff Voting just as much as IRV. Yes, it's a different method, but the claims from FairVote that voters didn't use lower ranks are just another way in which they spin statistics. The statistics themselves are evanescent, we've been trying to confirm FairVote claims and it is not easy, and some of the claims have been found to be false, I think. However, the *interpretations*, which they present as facts, are almost certainly false. Bucklin was not abandoned for the reasons they give. It was abandoned, I'm nearly certain, for the same reason Ann Arbor IRV was abandoned: it was working. Elections were being turned by those lower rank votes. When that happened, the losing candidate or party saw Bucklin as the enemy, and they acted. In Brown v. Smallwood, the Court overturned a clearly just result. IRV, by the way, would have produced the same result, I think, but it's hard to tell. And the Court almost certainly would have overturned IRV as well.

If you want a private discussion, my email is linkable from my user page. I suppose I believe FairVote's propaganda by in large, and yours seems a greater stretch - trying to relate runoff and approval? There's nothing remotely like a runoff in Bucklin. NO ONE would thoughtlessly vote the same way in the second round (adding a second vote) if they knew the results from the first round so ranking is used against voters choice. While (two round) IRV at least does duplicate how they'd vote in a second(last) round of a real runoff. Tom Ruen 17:25, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

But what method I prefer is *irrelevant*. I'm just trying to assist in making this article NPOV; here is a chance it could become a featured article. Would that please FairVote? Do you think that I would try to damage the article so that this would not happen? If I wanted to damage the article, why would I ask Scott Ritchie to start helping? He has had two featured articles on voting methods! Why wouldn't I, instead, ask Warren Smith? After all, he *is* an election expert!

The ultimate goal of FairVote, Proportional Representation, is a good goal. Where I've parted with them, deeply, is over how to get there. We have been able to gather a fair amount of information about how FairVote was founded, and it was not a matter of consensus among the community of those interested in PR. It was a small group acting independently, and deciding strategy. IRV was a piece in that strategy. When I became involved in election methods, one irony that I noticed was that groups advocating election reform were not structured demoratically. They were pretty much "our way or the highway" organizations, a self-elected board, a tight oligarchy. That's pretty common, to be sure, but the irony of it struck me. I talked with some about this, and I was told, essentially, that democracy doesn't work, it's inefficient, if you want to get anything done, you have to take charge and do it. People reforming democracy did not believe in it.... However, my conclusion is that the alleged inefficiency of democracy can be fixed, once one realizes the nature of the problem. Few people even think about it. Abd 06:11, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

On getting to a compromise

Jack seems to dislike my use of paragraph response; however, it's necessary for me. Consider me as having a neurological disorder, needing this kind of organization. It is, in fact, the case. Abd 02:19, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Abd makes three claims.

1) IRV is not as good as other voting systems.

That's not a point that I made above, or if there was something indicating that, it was dicta. I think I have argued this very little, here, and what I'd really say is that whether one election method is better than another depends on context. Abd 02:19, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

To which I say, we get the point.

I'm not sure what point "we" get. Whether or not IRV is better than or worse than other voting systems is largely irrelevant to the core of the article, which should state facts, not value judgements like "better than" or "not as good as." Quoting someone or some organization making a value judgement *can* be allowed, but in that case great caution should be exercised, that one is not simply projecting or exaggerating a comparative judgment that is not necessarily there. Abd 02:19, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

2) Abd is here to help by making the article NPOV so it can get featured.

No, that is not what I said. I'm here to help make the article NPOV. A possible consequence was mentioned. Likely, this is not something that I could even approach by myself, it would take a community. A community that includes critics and supporters, as well as academics, experts, and others. All this could be and should be available to us. Abd 02:19, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

To which I say, one, why would an IRV hater want the thing featured in the first place? Two, help is not the goal of someone pursuing the stated benefit of annoying an intellectual opponent.

I'd challenge Jack to come up with one quote, with the context, justifying the rather rude claim that I am an "IRV-hater." There *are* some strong feelings here, but they are not about IRV, they are about deception, covert manipulation, and the rest of what we saw happening here. It's my opinion that this kind of approach to public discussion has not been limited to this article, hence my statements about my political goals outside of Wikipedia, brought in from outside, which, by the way, is considered pretty rude in itself; further, this was not an "intellectual opponent." It was about politics. But that will take me too far from our topic here, which is properly just what Jack tagged this, "On getting to a compromise." Though, in fact, I think we can aim much higher than "Compromise," at least those of us who care more about article quality in Wikipedia than we do about political effect. Abd 02:19, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

3) IRV is nothing but FairVote's way to incrementally attain PR-STV.

To which I say, that is outsider conjecture.

Perhaps. I conjecture that Jack, writing the above, is sitting at a keyboard of some kind. In fact, of course, he could be doing something else.... My understanding of FairVote's agenda is based on a review of Richie's writings on the subject. He wrote as much at one point, and it is really the only thing that makes sense of Fairvote strategy. I should also mention that this has been discussed with someone who was involved in the meeting that led to the formation of the Center for Voting and Democracy, which was originally named with "Proportional Representation" in the name, took place. It's not just speculation; it happens to be that I *did* speculate this before receiving confirmation of it from the sources mentioned. It explains just about everything. But Jack is correct, this is all dicta. Dicta is my middle name. Abd 02:19, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Points one and three really aren't relevant to the debate, which is how to govern this article on Wikipedia. It's fairly clear that the administrators are not going to take sides, not going to crown any particular faction King of the IRV Article. The mandate here is to sort out a compromise and call in the Leviathan after.

Well, we don't have to wait. I don't think any of us still participating here are blocked from editing the article, though maybe I'm wrong about that. Further, Terrill Bouricius has now been unblocked, and, I will note, my support for the unblock was mentioned in the making of that decision. If I'm such an "IRV-hater," why would I support his unblock? In any case, there will be no problem with whatever we come to substantial agreement on. As I wrote elsewhere, I'm not willing to be the Lone Ranger on this, more than temporarily. I *was* the Lone Ranger against the sock puppets and Richie, but, clearly, this is no way to obtain a consensus, it was merely clearing out some huge obstacles. The real work begins now. Abd 02:19, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Cutting up other people's talk-page posts with point-by-point response does not serve compromise. It garbles the discussion. Debating the merits of IRV garbles the discussion. Being verbose garbles the discussion. Not knowing your main point and identifying it with a topic header that sets it apart from the rest of the discussion garbles the discussion.

Well, I agree with some of this, and concede that there may be some truth to the rest. I'm famous for being verbose. My friends complain about it, except for a few. I have another friend who is much more succinct than I, and possibly just as bright. But it takes him four times as long to write a fourth as much, and I already spend too much time. I can do it. I did it in protecting myself against the possible WP:3RR ban that I risked. Essentially, I knew that administrators make snap judgments, and that if one is not succinct, one is ignored. What I was doing was a demonstration of WP:IAR, which is inherently risky. I will know that I have *really* succeeded when an IRV supporter comes to me and thanks me for what I did. We *cannot* have real consensus without passing through disagreement. Abd 02:19, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

What's needed is a set of standards on how to approach the entire voting systems section. Will criticism be included in the articles, or will it be in separate, linked pages? Will there be a standard format for each article?

Certainly that would simplify things. Why reinvent the wheel every time? Or spin it, as the case may be. The more I think about it, the better I like it. Including criticism in the articles will make each article a battleground. Excluding it, as a matter of consensus, would confine the battles to a Controversies article, or however it is organized, and, in fact, framed in that way, it should get a little easier. That is, sourcing for an argument, i.e., that an argument is being made, is much easier than sourcing for a more involved fact. Normally, for example, an apparently sincere blog plus the general testimony of an editor that an argument exists, that it is not merely idiosyncratic, should be enough to establish it, whereas normally blogs aren't acceptable as "reliable sources." The source, in this case, is simply establishing that an argument is actually being made, is not merely a straw man.

I tend to favor *not* including criticism -- or arguments in favor -- in the basic article. The basic article should answer the basic questions: what is "IRV" -- which is actually a tricky problem in itself, since there are many variations, all called "IRV," with sometimes critical differences between them, plus the very name IRV was coined by activists as a political move -- who invented it and where, what is it's history (not the *entire* history, but a brief summary, how does it work, and what are its characteristics and performance as an election method (or as a family of methods); i.e., criteria satisfied and not satisfied or the like, or other characteristics (Yee diagrams *might* be relevant here, though perhaps that should be an article by itself. Contrary to what has been claimed here, Yee diagrams enjoy some distributed acceptance, it is not simply Yee himself. Formal publication is pretty likely to happen soon.... my point here is not that Yee diagrams should be in the article now, but that they are a graphical method of rapidly expressing how a single-winner election method performs under a variety of conditions, and thus, if they could be properly sourced, they could belong in the article.) Then other sub-articles would explore details and such matters as controversy or criticism. This is, I feel, much more encyclopedic.Abd 02:19, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

It's difficult to approach the question of standards because everything is so politicized. That's why the IRV article is having so many growing pains, while the range voting piece is relatively quiet and lacking a pointed criticism section. The discussion of range voting on that page is fairly biased. One might borrow a phrase; it reads as though it's been drafted by friends and members of the Center for Range Voting. But the level of public interest in one or another system has made the IRV page, not the range page, the current flashpoint for this debate.

I think it was drafted by Range people, but it was then edited away, to some degree, from what they'd want, and there was no concerted effort to "defend" it. It's not surprising that discussion of Range would be imbalanced toward those who support it, because these are the people with the highest interest. But imbalanced discussion does not make for good Wikipedia articles. And there is a lot about Range Voting that could be said, and sourced, that is not in the article. For example, little known fact: Wikipedia does not normally use "voting." That is, the votes that are taken are merely lists of opinions by participants. Once, however a vote was taken. What method did they use? They called it Average Voting, but follow the link. That's an interesting fact that belongs in the article, and it isn't there. How would it be if an IRV supporter put it there? I plan to add the Ann Arbor history of IRV to this article. IRV was unjustly eliminated there, in my opinion. Get this: I am *not* an IRV hater. That is, in fact, Richie propaganda, and he's repeated it in many places.

One strategy would be to tenaciously pound at the range voting page in the way its advocates have done with the IRV page. That would make the costs of not having a convention, not having standards, very apparent. I suggest we skip that phase and address the need for standards now.

Please, if Range advocates have "pounded" at the IRV page, I'd like to see diff on it. Put it here or on my Talk page, I'd be fascinated. I have not looked back beyond the early part of this year, but in that period, I didn't see any sign of it. Further, someone truly pounding at the Range Voting page would attract attention, and, my guess, the article would ultimately improve. As this one will, I expect.

Why does someone reference Wikipedia on IRV or range voting? To begin a learning process by getting the main idea. Books could be written on the intricacies of either system. The audience does not need a book.

If there is enough to say about criticism of a voting system, it should be moved to a separate, accessible page. That is true of both systems. Getting to that point will lower the transacation costs for all partisans involved. Jack 17:05, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Certainly I agree. I'm so glad that Jack wrote it! Abd 02:19, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

That all sounds good to me. My main contribution was getting the pro-con section added, my attempt at a balanced compromise to User:Ask10questions's request for a criticism section. I admit what I want isn't really pro/con like a fight, but most a section that expresses system differences. (and I guess a whiff at why they might want to support something completely different.) I don't particularly like the IRV, it is argued phrases, seems like mostly facts, besides a few I tagged with [citation needed]. It may be more debateable items ought to belong elsewhere. I don't know. Tom Ruen 17:17, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Your attempt to provide the "whiff," Tom, is admirable. Unfortunately the whiff leads to relatively intractable disputes about how much whiff should be on the page and in what direction the whiff should blow, and then how many whiffs should blow in which directions, and so on, so forth. The debate over the content of this page is not the first. War has been an iterative process. The outcome for general Wikipedia users is an 'introduction to IRV' that is, at various stages, one-sided, too long, in flux, plastered with warning signs, or frozen in one of these states. That's why it's said we need to debate a lead; the lead will be contentious.

This entry should be confined to a single question: What is instant runoff voting? That will allow for a survey of the basic mechanics and history. The lead that follows will be straighforward and non-contentious.

A separate entry on Criticism of Instant Runoff Voting then can go in-depth. It might answer the question: What are the principal criticisms of instant runoff voting?

One of the problems I've seen in having Pro and Con sections is that these can become mere lists of arguments, named but not explored in sufficient depth for them to be clearly understood. Rather, there are "Issues," and the labelling of the issues as "Pro" or "Con" is itself POV! So, as an example, there is an issue with strategic voting in IRV. What does that mean? Is strategic voting possible in IRV? Does it actually happen where IRV is used? And then, how does this compare with other methods? Are the problems merely theoretical or are there actual impacts on real elections? Etc., etc.

In a sense, the "pro" and "con" arguments relate to *campaigns*, they are, in a sense, political history. Sometimes recent history, sometimes not. Arguments against Bucklin Voting are currently being made by IRV advocates, as if these arguments were part of the reason why Bucklin was discarded. That appears to not be true, historically. The decision in Brown v. Smallwood has been presented as based on a violation of one-person, one-vote, based on the multiple simultaneous alternative votes ([Approval Voting]]) that Bucklin allowed when ranks collapsed, but there is strong evidence, ignored in the FairVote analysis, that the Court would have similarly rejected IRV; and not only the dissent but a great deal of other opinion at the time rejected the one-person, one-vote argument. And I'm getting into too much detail again. My point is that real arguments were really made by real people. What were the arguments against IRV in the Republican campaign to repeal it in Ann Arbor? The cabal actually prevented these arguments from being presented as con arguments, at the very end of their hegemony. Of course, they weren't sourced.... In fact, though, when an article is in formation and flux, the testimony of an editor should normally be enough that an argument exists, and no similar requirements for sourcing were placed on the Pro arguments -- which Tom noticed and thus asked for sources. Abd 02:19, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Anti-IRV partisans are not driven by IRV's inability to be totally spoiler-free in all circumstances. They are driven by a different perceived problem with politics. The attention to spoilers is nothing more than an outgrowth of the fact that selling IRV as a resolution to spoiler problems has been an efficacious way to promote reform (to an audience grounded in a two-party system where periodic third-party candidaces seem problematic). The resultant debate has been nothing more than a product of the attempt to attack an effective frame.

I certainly would not disagree with this, for some. However, the only community I know well are the Range advocates, plus some people who participate on the Range and Election Methods lists who prefer ranked methods. While I've been lumped in with the Range people, in fact what I favor is a hybrid between Range and Rank which results in overall satisfaction of the Majority and Condorcet Criteria. Some Range people dislike this intensely.... Some Condorcet supports think it ridiculous, a waste of time.... and this is a discussion for another time, another place. I'm just establishing what my own position is.... Abd 02:19, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

The spoiler problem is a rhetorical frame that resonates in one particular party system. It is not a useful way to frame the presentation of information - not useful because folks from other party systems presumably will reference Wikipedia when asking the question: What is instant runoff voting? What is wrong with politics and how does reform solve it produce different answers for (1) different people in (2) different party systems? The article should not fundamentally be about those questions.

You know, this is part of what I've been saying.... but more succinctly expressed, for sure.Abd 02:19, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that much of this unending, intractable and highly irritating debate centers on the normative. That is, what problem is IRV 'designed' to address? How can it fail to address it? How might it have failed to address it in practice, in certain situations? In the longer term, we need to depoliticize the normative by treating it dryly. Doing that involves a comprehensive catalogue of all known voting system criteria and a very dry lead. The question asked might be: How does instant runoff voting stack up against criteria used to evaluate voting systems? What normative expectation of politics does each criterion flow from?

Jack, I'm so glad that Ritchie called you in!

Treating all the articles in the voting systems section this way would be useful. Right now, one who vists the IRV entry encounters less-than-coherent babble that is clearly the outgrowth of contention. One who visits the range voting entry, on the other hand, encounters a parsimonious and generally favorable treatment. This situation is untenable. The cyclical nature of debates over the IRV page suggest it is a question of when, not if, the range voting page will fall to a similar fate. Jack 20:09, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I was going to write that the Range voting article deserves equal attention, but, actually, not. There is a hierarchy of priorities, based on what people are most likely to know about. The Range voting people have pretty much united behind a much simpler method *as an immediate reform.* Just Count All the Votes. If anyone wants to discuss this and debate its merit, I'd invite that this take place in Talk for the Approval Voting article, because Count All the Votes (my own term, equivalent to coining Instant Runoff Voting for single-winner STV, i.e., coined to convey a political message, succinctly and rapidly, and this has been taken up by others) is almost exactly the same in effect as the original Approval Voting. Approval is being considered, currently, by the Colorado Voter Choice Task Force that Rob Richie recently spoke before, followed by Warren Smith making a presentation on Range and a professor, I forget the name, speaking on Approval. There is some small possibility that Count All the Votes could be in place by 2008. There is also a recent Condorcet method initiative in Washington State (Schulze method). Since these are taking place currently, we could decide that they take priority (along with IRV, of course, which is much more broadly being considered).

The history of the name "Instant Runoff Voting," if we can source it, should be in the page....

It does not have to be dry. But it should be, carefully and clearly, NPOV. We can and will, I predict, use methods of measuring consensus to resolve difficult issues, before going to arbitration if necessary. But I actually think that what happened here has attracted -- and will attract -- some participants with the strong intentions to create a truly fine article. I certainly disagree with Tom on a lot, but, it seems to me we can work together, and I'm quite pleased by the cogency of Jackms's comments.

Terrill Bouricius may be coming back, at least here to Talk if not to the article page, and the presence of some other good and experienced editors may help him to become truly a major contributor. I think he has the knowledge, if he has the intentions. As the unblocking administrator wrote, some of his actions were not commendable, but the block was lifted because his "offenses" did not rise to a level that would justify a ban. Content disputes do not, in themselves, result in rapid admin banning; rather, there is a process beginning with gentle suggestions, then mediation, and then arbitration if the easier steps fail. An arbiter can order non-participation in an article, and if an editor violates that, perhaps using sock puppets, then there can be a ban. I think that the administrator who banned Terrill Bourcious and Ask10questions was quite angry about the blatant sock puppetry and abuse of reverts by Rob Richie -- anonymous reverts never should be allowed other than an occasional inadvertent one! -- that he went overboard in banning those two; and, to my surprise, he continued to defend his action even when I attempted to intervene, and then again when it went above him to the next level. He was *angry*. And anger sometimes pushes us a bit too far. I don't blame him for being angry!

Reading over the above, there was a mention of the article being frozen. It has not been frozen. It is currently protected against edits by newly-registered users, to prevent the sock puppets from reasserting themselves with a new account. If a sock puppet has an old account, it might make it through, but, with enough of us working together on this, a old sock would just be throwing himself away if he tried to pull again what had been going on. As far as I can tell, nobody who was not blocked and who has edited the article over the last few months is a sock, and some new people have been showing up who have long edit histories elsewhere. We are free to proceed with improving the article, but I will mention that Scott Ritchie has suggested a possibility that we might create an entirely new article as a draft before substituting it for this one. Still, there is a lot of good information in this article; I agree with Jack that it would be useful to develop a standard Voting system format; indeed we could create a project page for that, and this is the kind of thing that Scott seems to be interested in.

Yes, I'm back (this is Terry Bouricius here). I agree that a revamped article is probably a good idea. (Of course, in the mean time I will still try to correct the misinformation in the Robert's Rules of Order reference).

Perhaps one of us can propose an outline of headings that he or she thinks should be common to all election method pages, and what additional headings might be needed for the IRV page in particular. It seems to me that the page should primarily explain how IRV works, where it came from and is used, and how it differs from plurality and two-election runoffs (since these are the comparisons that 99% of the readers will be curious about). I suspect that adherents of other voting methods might object to this and may want the article to include some evaluation criteria section, etc. Therefore, I also think ALL of the election method pages shold prominently link to each other and to an evaluations criteria page (that will be hard to write).

I also agree that the pro and con bullet section is problematic. Bullets are easy to read, and thus are more likely to be seen, but also create the illusion of certainty. We shouldn't list pros or cons merely because someone has asserted them. A claim on a Blog is not a source. (If I and a few others claim IRV leads to balding on a Blog, the simple fact that the claim is MADE does not mean it deserves inclusion). For example a pro bullet that says IRV reduces negative campaigning is annecdotal at best, and is essentially conjecture, as far as I know, at least I haven't come across any study on the matter. A Con bullet that says IRV violates one-person one-vote, even though the Michigan court case buried that miss-understanding, also isn't suitable as a bullet. Such pros and cons, if widely written about in the literature may be mentionable in the article (with refutation and doubts of others included), within a paragraph but not in a bullet list.

Do all of those currently engaging on this article agree that a new article should be crafted in some "sand box" until it is deemed ready for prime time? Or do some feel the current article is pretty close to okay as is, and that conventional editing should just continue?

Tbouricius 17:28, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

(unindent) Again, welcome back, Mr. Bouricius. If there is any misinformation or error in the Robert's Rules reference, by all means, correct it, but, given the history, and unless it is a clear error, I suggest discussing it first in the sections of Talk relevant to it, or in some alternate fashion as may appear. The largest issue was that of spin. To someone on a merry-go-round, if it abruptly stops, it appears to spin in the opposite direction. Only when one settles does stationary stability seem to be such. The controversy over that revealed to me some very basic principles which confirm that the matter of disregarding exhausted ballots is not a mere detail, but central to the basic principles of deliberative process as are important to Robert's Rules. Robert's Rules would not recommend a method which elects candidates by a mere plurality, hence the important difference between what it *describes* and "Instant Runoff Voting" as described in this article, which clearly disregards exhausted ballots, not considering them valid votes. Roberts Rules considers them valid, even if exhausted, and so does not disregard them. We may argue forever over whether or not this is a good thing to do, but the fact is that this difference exists, and thus describing it is not POV or distorted, whereas omitting it could be.

I don't represent "adherents to other voting systems," and, indeed, will point out the thinking underlying this phrase, which is that this is about belief and attachment rather than about truth and clear expression. Indeed, this is what I see as the problem! Politically, in the context of U.S. public elections, I'm a promoter of Counting All the Votes, a blindingly simple solution to *some* problems with Plurality, and, I'm quite sure, legally sustainable, the objection of one-person, one-vote violation being just as spurious as the rejection of alternative votes in Brown v. Smallwood was. That does not mean that I consider Approval -- which is what we get if we simply count the votes as cast on a standard plurality-style ballot -- the best election method. It is merely an excellent first step that bypasses all problems with cost and complexity. From there, I would expect to see many experiments with election methods, including forms of preference voting using ranked ballots. Indeed, while I don't think any single-step election method is truly ideal, there is a runoff system possible that would only occasionally require an actual runoff, which is Range Voting with preference analysis. If there is a candidate who pairwise beats the Range winner, then there is a runoff between the two. This *cannot* be "instant." More than this, as description or advocacy, would be out of place here, I am merely disclosing my own preferences, which are not actually at issue here.

Nevertheless, I believe I would support moving both advocacy and criticism away from this article to other articles referenced here. As others have expressed, the main article should primarily be informative about what Instant Runoff Voting is and has been, and if there is anything here about controversy, it should be only a "whiff," as Mr. Ruen called it. There is no problem in this if what we put up here is a matter of consensus. This place, in fact, is an opportunity for those of us with an interest in this subject to find consensus. We may never come to agreement on, say, whether or not Instant Runoff Voting should be used in some specific jurisdiction, or even generally at all, but what we need to focus on first is creating a clear, cogent, and accurate description of what Instant Runoff Voting is, how it works, its implications and known characteristics, devoid of advocacy or opposition, but *possibly* describing some of that. Alternatively, the advocacy or opposition could be left to references; possibly with some brief description of each reference.

Again, I've been involved in religious debate and, as one might imagine, feelings can run deep there. But it is possible, sometimes, to come to agreement about certain things. In particular, I recall a Christian minister who was leading a class on Islam presented at an elder facility, and what he said about it. "My goal," he said, "is to describe Islam such that Muslims would say, "Yes, that is what we believe." That was a noble goal, and he invited me to participate and to correct him if he erred. So, bringing this back here, we should create an article such that "adherents" to IRV or any other voting system, as well as those with knowledge and not biased, will agree that, yes, this is IRV. Whether or not IRV is a "good idea" or not is an entirely different matter. Probably what is involved in that question would be moved, if it is going to be a Wikipedia article at all, to an article like Instant Runoff Voting: Controversies. And this may become a standard for all Voting Methods Articles.

As to bullets Pro and Con, Mr. Bouricius has correctly noted that this can create an impression of certainty. I have previously stated my position on sourcing in the matter of arguments. Because a blog establishes the fact that an argument is made, a blog is, for this narrow purpose, a legitimate source. That does not mean that reference to it as an argument should be in the article, for, as noted, there can exist an idiosyncratic argument that is essentially irrelevant. This is where editorial judgment comes in. And who is the editor? *Our consensus is the editor.* I have not removed unsourced Pro arguments, so far, even though I am concerned with certain misleading impressions that they can create, because I know that those *are* actual arguments being made. I don't need a source to know that. Sources would be nice, and useful, but we do not demand sources for every statement when what is being said is common knowledge.

As to the "argument that Instant Runoff Voting violates one-person, one-vote," it *is* an argument that has been made. That it is wrong, perhaps, is another matter. False arguments are part of the political debate all the time. Is it wrong? There is no crisp definition of one-person, one-vote. IRV does devalue certain votes because of the matter of exhaustion. The Robert's Rules variant does not do this, it regards all exhausted ballots as representing No votes for all remaining candidates. So, in fact, I have seen the argument made that IRV gives some voters more power than others, and there is some substance to this. How important is it that this subtlety be represented in the article? Again, that's an editorial judgement! It's up to us, collectively, to decide that, and no one of us has the right to impose their vision of truth on our decisions. Consensus requires general consent, and there is an initial presumption that any dissenting individual breaks consensus. Sure, one of us might refuse to consent to anything. But I don't see that happening, in fact. I insisted on a position in the *absence* of general consensus, the apparent consensus of the editors here being a result of, frankly, some undesirable conditions which had driven away the editors necessary for there to be broad participation and thus true consensus. It's pretty discouraging to put in a few hour's work on adding references to find them disappear in a few minutes because some anonymous editor or sock puppet knows how to hit Undo and has no restraint about it. I hope you understand, Mr. Bouricius, that that had to stop. I intervened on behalf of *Wikipedia*, not on behalf of Approval Voting, my alleged bias. And I believe that my subsequent actions prove this: my support for your unblocking, as well as my efforts to bring in experienced editors not known by me to support my personal opinions, and my restraint in editing the article while I had what Mr. Richie has called "a free rein," all proceeded from my commitment to consensus process and my trust in it. So let's proceed with assumptions of good faith on all sides!

One more point. There is no conflict between making changes to the exiting article and working on a new version. So besides, continuing to clean up this article as it is, and to expand it as appropriate, I'd suggest working on a general format for election methods as a Project page, or the like. This could be a general election methods format, so questions of the manipulation of format to possibly favor a particular method would largely be avoided. Once we agree on the format, then it would be relatively simple matter to copy it to a specific project page for IRV, move content to that format and when it is all ready, move the page. Abd 01:39, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Abd, I agree it would be ideal if we could proceed "with assumptions of good faith." But one of the reasons I find it challenging to work with you on this (though I am willing to try again) is that you continually assert your purity and question the integrity of most others. I am wondering why you insist on implying that I did anything to warant the block? You go out of your way, a few posts above, to attribute to the unblocking administrator the view that some of my actions were "not commendable," and that I committed "offenses" but that these were not sufficient to uphold the block. This is fiction, and makes it hard for me to assume your good faith. The unblocking administrator, who reviewed the record, never said I did anything "not commendable" at ALL. He specifically states that he is NOT saying that I made ANY violations, and never objects in any way to my actions. Why promote the myth that I was naughty? Please drop your 'Wikier than thou' attitude, and let's get to drafting.

Tbouricius 03:29, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Okay, Mr. Bouricius, instead of assuming that there was some basis for what I wrote, you apparently assume that I just made it up. Read back carefully what I wrote and your response. I don't think you realize that when an administrator's action is appealed, it is discussed. It was not simply that another came along and reversed it. Your actions were inappropriate, but you are also a newcomer, and all of us will cut you a lot of slack. You could learn from this, or you could assume that you were merely an innocent victim of circumstances. It's up to you. Anyway, I suppose you will need proof, which is unfortunate but apparently true. It is a mark of good faith to start with an assumption that the others aren't fabricating what they say!

Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Unblock_requests_of_Tbouricius_and_User:Ask10questions

Let me explain a little more. From the above:

While the editor behavior on the article was far from optimal, I am concerned by the indefinite blocks, at least some of which were not preceded by any warnings. Tariqabjotu has indicated that he stands by the blocks and does not anticipate reviewing the matter further but that any concerns could be raised here at ANI. I would appreciate input from other admins on these requests. Newyorkbrad 15:18, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

This was from the comment from Newyorkbrad which opened the incident traffic on this case. First of all, the blocking administrator, if you look at all the posts in various places from him, took strong action because he saw strong cause. There was serious abuse going on here, and it disturbs me that at no time have you made any acknowledgment of this. In the discussions which ensue, there is mention of "meat puppetry." Do you know what that means and to whom that refers? There is only one possible "meat puppet" in this incident, and that is you. They are cutting you slack because you were not warned. The decision could have gone the other way, but a critical factor was my participation. Read this:

(ec) I've only started going therough the various talk page discussions, but since the blocking editor seems to feel that User:Abd was defending the article from puppeteering, if that same user (Abd) suggests that one or two of the editors were unjustly blocked, then perhaps unblocking should be at least considered? - jc37 15:41, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

What is he referring to? Look at User_talk:P-j-t-a, and read what I put there.

This user was the one who reported me for alleged 3RR violations from the multiple reverts I used to deal with the socks. User:P-j-t-a was a blatant sock, a single-purpose account created just to report me. It was just User:BenB4, who had been assisting Richie all along, and who became User:Acct4 when he was banned, as his previous incarnations had been banned. Whoever BenB4 is, he is fairly sophisticated about Wikipedia, knowing far more than I about it, but he also made lots of stupid mistakes. I might be able to identify him as I identified Richie. Who, by the way, has admitted that it was him, editing anonymously at 72.75. Not that there was any doubt.

Now, do we need to keep going over this history here? I hope not! Abd 05:15, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Settling What Robert's Rules of Order Means

In addition to miss-stating what Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised 10th edition (RONR) has to say about IRV as its example of "preferential voting" and removing it from the introduction, Abd has also added another RONR reference that I believe is POV.

For easy reference I will paste Abd's latest RONR edit here.

"HOwever, in the variation of IRV described in Robert's Rules, an exhausted ballot continues to be counted as a No vote against all remaining candidates, thus it can cause a failure of the election to declare a winner if a majority is required."

At least, in this edit, Abd has conceded that the detailed example of preferential voting in RONR is one of the variations of IRV (thank you for that admission). I look forward to his correcting his edit in the other RONR reference where he denies "preferential voting" includes IRV, but is merely similar.

However, he ascribes to RONR a personal theory of his that does not appear in RONR. He links to the voting methods in RONR Wikipedia page, but there is nothing supporting his assertion on that page. RONR never suggests that a preferntial election on a ballot mailed to members internationally would be deemed invalid, with no election of officers, if the number of exhausted ballots was too high - requiring a new election. RONR (section 45, voting procedure) does say that to use IRV it must be specifically authorized in the bylaws, and of course the bylaws can specify whether there has been a failure to elect, or an election, in such a situation. As a general rule in RONR, blank votes are NOT counted in the denominator when calculating majority thresholds, but "illegal" votes cast by legal voters (perhaps not ranking all candidates IF the bylaws require ranking all candidates?) ARE included in the denominator.

The question is whether a short-list ranking on a ballot means that in the final round of counting, a ballot that gives no ranking to either finalist should be considered BLANK. In the section on "preferential voting," RONR (page 413) simply states that such exhausted ballots "should not be placed in any pile, but should be set aside." This may be ambiguous. Elsewhere, RONR says a ballot should be disregarded as BLANK if the voter did not register "any evidence of having some opinion" on that specific question. Abd assumes that an exhausted ballot means the voter is expressing a NO vote against all remaining candidates, while others (I think most) would believe the voter was saying he/she had no preference between those two, and thus no opinion on that specific question. RONR does not assert that an exhausted ballot is a vote against remaining candidates.

As a general rule RONR allows a voter to abstain on a question by not expressing an opinion on his/her ballot, such as by casting a blank, and that such ballots are NOT votes against a candidate, or included in the denominator used to calculate the majority threshold. RONR does not give a specific rule (other than to "set aside") for how to deal with later-round blanks when dealing with sequentially counted ranked ballots, leaving it to the adopted bylaws. I believe most parliamentarians would agree with me, that RONR is suggesting preferential voting as an option as a way of AVOIDING having to have a subsequent election (for mail election in its example, etc.), while reducing the likelihood of having a plurality winner, which is common in vote-for-one elections.

If Abd can find an authoritative interpretation of RONR that insists an exhausted ballot must be counted as a no vote against all remiaing candidates, then I will reverse my position. But for now, it is clear that his edit is unfounded and does not belong in the article. This assertion (of how RONR deals with exhausted ballots) also needs to be removed from the other RONR reference where Abd inserted it repeatedly previously. In deference to avoiding an edit battle, I will postpone making this correction, to give time for any others to weigh in if they wish.

Tbouricius 17:34, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

First of all, Terril Bouricius seems to have overlooked that I extensively quoted Robert's Rules of Order -- using the material from the FairVote site! -- previously, in two separate sections on this issue. It is quite clear that what Robert's Rules describes could be called a variation of Instant Runoff Voting, but it is equally true that Instant Runoff Voting could be called a variation of Preferential Voting. If, however, the claim is going to be made that "Robert's Rules recommends Instant Runoff Voting," two things need to be established.

(1) There is no sigificant variation between what Robert's Rules describes and what the article describes, and

(2) The description of the method constitutes an unqualified "recommendation."

Neither of these is true. As to the first, if Bouricius wishes to claim that the method described in Robert's Rules is "Instant Runoff Voting," then the variation involved must be shown as a variation of Instant Runoff Voting in this article, and it would be best if, then, the "recommendation" is specific to that variation. It appears that Mr. Bouricius is challenging that, but I will treat it separately. For the purposes of this first point, I'm assuming that the difference exists.

As to the second point, I have already quoted extensively from Robert's Rules on the topic, I know those sections of Talk are long, but for that very reason, I'm not going to repeat what I wrote there, here.

Now, to the crucial point of contention. Reviewing the past material, I see that I have never explicitly sourced my claim that Robert's Rules continues to consider exhausted ballots as votes for candidates other than those remaining in the election, which effectively makes them into No votes on the question of electing any remaining candidate. That's an oversight, caused, probably, by my relative familiarity with Robert's Rules and its theoretical underpinnings. So I must do the work, here to source the claim.

First, see the article referenced in the Robert's Rules mention:

Voting_methods_in_Robert's_Rules_of_Order

Read the section on Runoffs. The positions there are about real runoffs, or any limitation of balloting to the top two candidates, and this clearly applies to IRV. There is a link at the bottom of this article to Robert's Rules as quoted by FairVote.

Now, this is from Robert's Rules on the counting procedure, this being the final step:

Again the number of ballots in each existing pile is recorded, and, if necessary, the process is repeated—by redistributing each time the ballots in the thinnest remaining pile, according to the marked second choice or most-preferred choice among those not yet eliminated—until one pile contains more than half of the ballots, the result being thereby determined. The tellers’ report consists of a table listing all candidates or propositions, with the number of ballots that were in each pile after each successive distribution.

What about exhausted ballots?

If a ballot having one or more names not marked with any numeral comes up for placement at any stage of the counting and all of its marked names have been eliminated, it should not be placed in any pile, but should be set aside.

Now, does the clerk report this "set aside" not-a-pile? I'm assuming that the clerk does so, and that the rules are merely distinguishing the piles that are being compared to each other with the exhausted pile. Are these "ballots"? Being set aside does not make them not ballots, and thus these ballots -- assuming that they contain a valid vote -- are considered as part of the majority. For them not to be, the rules would have to be explicit that they are to be disregarded. Now, is this merely an oversight? Did Robert's Rules intend for them to be disregarded, as if they were invalid votes?

This is where my own understanding of Robert's Rules came in. I did, however, research the point. There is another reference in the Wikipedia article:

[7] which emphasizes the presumption that all elections must be by a majority of votes cast, and that for the contrary to occur, the bylaws must explicitly permit it. I will explain that this is because majority rule is crucial to Robert's Rules. The preference of a mere plurality of those voting should never be enough to accomplish any action, except by specific alteration of the rules to that effect, and such a matter should be carefully considered, it should not be hidden as an obscure detail.

The votes in the exhausted pile will properly be reported by the clerk. Consider this preferential voting election being described as if it were a plurality election with three candidates, being A, B, and AllOthers or NoneOfTheAbove. IRV allows ballot distribution so that all votes for A and B are considered, but what about All Others? These were valid ballots, their being set aside to determine the plurality winner in IRV, by a majority of remaining ballots, does not change that. The process described above refers to "more than half the ballots." It does not say "more than half the ballots in the remaining candidate piles." Follow that process, and you will never elect a winner by a mere plurality, as IRV, as described in the article, can do.

And this is a critical concern for Robert's Rules. It has *other* objections to "preferential voting," which is why the term "recommends," unqualified, is misleading.

In some places IRV may have been implemented where there is a majority election requirement. Unless that requirement was removed from the law, which is possible, there would be a basis for challenging some IRV elections, and my strong suspicion is that an election could be reversed and forced to go to a runoff if there was majority failure as we have been considering. The exhausted ballots are valid votes, they continue to be considered, properly, for determination of "majority of ballots."

One more point: If the rules require that all ballots rank all candidates, then ballots which do not can be considered void and thus do not form a part of the majority. Thus, *with such a bylaw provision*, what is described becomes identical to IRV with required full ranking. However, I am aware of no implementations of IRV in the United States which have such a requirement. Robert's Rules, I can say, would practically detest such a requirement, because it essentially forces a voter to vote for someone whom they may hroughly detest, merely because there is also a clone of that person on the ballot. Under real Robert's Rules recommended process, such a thing would never occur, and, yes, this can result in election failure. That's what Robert's Rules wants when a majority of those voting don't accept the outcome explicitly! Abd 19:46, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Abd, you are not responding to my point about what RONR says about blanks. RONR is not explicit about whether exhausted ballots are deemed blank...(the voter has expressed no opinion on THAT question - of whether candidate D is preferable to G or G to D), this would normally be seen as an abstention, which RONR explicitly allows when voting by ballot, and NOT counted in the calculation of a majority threshold. In support of this, note that RONR states that "each segment of the ballot is treated as if it were a separate ballot". Now, that is reference to multiple races on a ballot, but the same principle can apply when ballots are counted in sequnetial rounds ("among these remaining candidates, which does the voter prefer?") You ask how would blank/exhausted ballots be considered if not "ballots?" RONR states that they are not to be put in any pile. Presumably reasonable tellers would preserve blanks and exhausted ballots in case of a recount, but RONR is clear that "All blanks must be ignored as scrap paper" (page 401) and not used for calculating majority thresholds.

The key is this

RONR says that preferential voting can only be used if allowed in the bylaws. How exhausted ballots should be handled should obviously be in the bylaws as well, because it is impossible to say authoritatively how RONR handles them other than to say they are to be "set aside" and not put in any pile. To assert in the article, as Abd's edits do, that RONR is clear that exhausted ballots should count in calculating majority threshold is simply incorrect. It does not state that anywhere.

Next there is the issue of whether the variant of "preferential voting" described at great length in RONR is a form of IRV or merely similar to IRV. The method described is IDENTICAL IN EVERY RESPECT to the way IRV is implemented in most of Australia, and as described in this article. It is essentially the same, but not perfectly identical, to the way IRV is implemented in some other jurisdiction (London, San Francisco, etc.) But the fact that there is more than one way to implement IRV is discussed in the article.

Finally, there is the issue of the use of the word "recommends" as regards IRV. I abandoned that language in response to Abd's complaint many edits ago (although it had been there for months or years). The last and most accurate version that I inserted (and Abd again removed) read as follows

"IRV is detailed in "Robert's Rules of Order" as an example of "preferential voting," which it describes as superior to the commonly used plurality voting system and "especially useful and fair in an election by mail if it is impractical to take more than one ballot."

That is fair, balanced, and does not over-reach exactly what RONR states about this voting method. Nobody can honestly argue that this is biased or inaccurate.

I will wait before making that edit to see if anyone other than Abd has a problem with it.

Tbouricius 20:51, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Until we can settle the issue of exactly what Robert's Rules is recommending, the edit is controversial, and I oppose it. I have paid a great deal of attention to this issue, and have read the opinions of parliamentarians which relate to it, on the question of what spoiled ballots are. It will take some time to gather that evidence, I have children to put to bed. Until a consensus of editors appears on this, I oppose further changes; however, I would accept, ad interim, removal of all mention of Robert's Rules from the article, because what will remain will not contain controversial material. I believe that what is there is accurate, and I have served as a parliamentarian, but I recuse myself from making any final judgement on this issue. The lack of agreement with me, here, does not negate the lack of a consensus, Mr. Bouricius cannot simply assert his own opposition as prevailing, as he seems inclined to do. So we can take the time to work this out, or, if he insists, go back to what was part of what got him banned before, participation an edit war while being a single-issue editor. Next time that might be permanent, but, hey, it's not up to me! I wouldn't even *suggest* a "penalty." I'll simply stand for what I think true and fair, and let the chips fall where they may. Abd 00:12, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Wow, what an amazingly lengthy discussion! Anyway, my view on RONR and parliamentary authorities in general is that they are becoming less relevant due to the increasingly prevalent preference to conduct meetings informally. However, you will still see a copy of RONR at pretty much every local governmental or organizational meeting, and it is still set forth in most organizational bylaws as the parliamentary authority, so therefore it should be mentioned in this article. It is clear that RONR favors electing officers by a majority vote using non-preferential ballots, with repeated balloting until a majority is achieved, and that it only suggests IRV when repeated balloting is impractical (e.g. when the election is conducted my mail). I think that the article could be phrased to reflect that. Captain Zyrain 04:27, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, I went ahead and added a section on IRV's appearance in parliamentary authorities. It is thoroughly sourced. So far, I only have info about RONR. We could use some info about Demeter's Manual of Parliamentary Law and Procedure, The Standard Code of Parliamentary Procedure (aka Sturgis), etc. Captain Zyrain 05:08, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

By the way, I would like to call your attention to this caveat on p. 413-414 of RONR (10th ed.): "Sometimes, for instance, voters decline to indicate a second or other choice, mistakenly believing that such a course increases the chances of their first choice. In fact, it may prevent any candidate from receiving a majority and require the voting to be repeated." It does appear that under the system described, exhausted ballots count similarly to illegal ballots cast by legal voters as described on page 402: "All illegal votes of the type described in the preceding paragraph – that is, illegal votes cast by legal voters – are taken into account in determining the number of votes cast for purposes of computing the majority." Thus, in an election of 10 legal voters with 4 votes for Mr. Friend and 6 illegal votes, balloting must be repeated. Similarly, in a preferential voting election with 4 votes for Mr. Friend and 6 exhausted ballots, balloting must be repeated. Note that this is only under the example of preferential voting that RONR gave on p. 411-414, and that the bylaws could specify any type of handling of exhausted votes desired. Captain Zyrain 05:21, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree it should be mentioned, even though, were I here for pure political effect, I'd hope it would be out entirely! However, for balance, it is essential that the reference be fully accurate, and not say what is not actually said by Robert's Rules.

Robert's Rules does not mention "Instant Runoff Voting," which was a political name made up to promote single-user STV in the United States. Captain Zyrain has correctly stated what Robert's Rules actually recommends in general. Then, where repeated balloting is considered impractical, it suggests "preferential voting," not "IRV." And then it gives an example of Preferential Voting, not recommending it over other variations. That example is *similar* to IRV, so similar that it's easy to miss the difference, especially if you have IRV on your mind already.

However, suppose you did *not* have IRV in mind, but you were a parliamentarian, familiar with the principles of Robert's Rules. You would read the description in the book, and you would conduct the method, being very aware of the rule that an election is not to be completed without the approval of a majority of voters, unless the bylaws *specifically* allow otherwise. So, when you come to the matter of exhausted ballots, you would continue to include them in the definition of "majority," even though they have been "set aside" in terms of the vote transfer process, there being no more vote transfers from them. This may seem like a small detail, but it is actually quite important: with this method, IRV becomes a better method, from the point of view of satisfying the concept of majority rule, but less efficient from the point of view that it might require some further process, such an actual runoff. The choice of which path to take is up to the organization. Depending on how the voters vote, how many exhausted ballots there normally are, etc., the runoff might be rare and the value of having a true majority winner might be considered more important. If not, then the bylaws would be amended to specifically allow a plurality winner. The political problem here, of course, is that IRV is being sold as "guarantees a majority winner," which is quite misleading. If we look at the San Francisco elections, there have been many races where only a minority, I think sometimes a fairly low minority, of voters actually voted for the winner *at all*. I would not be surprised to see, at some point, legal challenges to this, there are voting rights issues involved. I do not know how this would be resolved in court. Depends partly on details of the law that I don't know.

Note that Robert's Rules, as has been quoted above, speaks of a "majority of ballots." A parliamentarian would read this more specifically as "a majority of ballots containing a valid vote for any eligible candidate." The votes on exhausted ballots do not become invalid because those candidates are losing! So they remain part of the basis for "majority." And all I have done in my edits is to state this as succinctly as possible, but that's not enough for the IRV proponents. They want that damn recommendation!

I'm saying that I suspect they are going to have to be content that RR describes something similar to IRV, that the difference be made explicit; if they want "recommend," it would have to be said what Robert's Rules actually does say about the method! Which is not terribly complementary! -- It expresses serious concerns. Abd 05:15, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree it's not particularly complimentary, but they clearly view it as superior to plurality, which is the mainstream voting system in the US. What I find strange is that RONR gives a description of preferential bloc voting rather than single transferable vote as an example of how to use preferential voting in elections for multi-member offices (e.g. board members). Not sure what they were thinking there. But that's a subject for another article. Captain Zyrain 05:28, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Captain Zyrain, I see you have added an entire heading about RONR deep in the article. I still believe the intorduction is an appropriate place for a brief mention of RONR, but obviously not if the discussion were this long. I can accept this placement, if others feel the RONR mention needs to be an entire paragraph. I have, however shortened your entry somewhat, while retaining the key points you selected to include. Saying that RONR does not call the method "IRV" could be miss-leading, since that RONR text long pre-dates the invention of the term IRV (this is not the first edition of RONR to discuss IRV.)

I agree that finding an online source for Section 45 of RONR would be useful (since your quotes want a source, as you show with your links to nowhere.) Unfortunately the only online presentation of section 45 that I have found is on FairVote's web site. I say unfortunately, because that web page has an introduction that some see as biased. (I know this because Abd removed my link to that source for that reason, when I quoted RONR).

Tbouricius 14:25, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps we should move the more detailed content to voting systems in Robert's Rules of Order and include a brief mention of RONR in the lead to the Instant Runoff Voting article, along with a wikilink to voting systems in Robert's Rules of Order. Captain Zyrain 15:32, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Pro and Con Bullet Section

I am tempted to go ahead and edit Abd's last edit where he removed in a CON bullet the explanation that plurality and separate runoff systems also can elect a candidate the majority would oppose. However, I will wait to see if we all agree to simply remove the entire bullet PRO/CON section for now. If it stays, I strongly believe the pros and cons need to compare IRV to the common EXISTING voting methods widely used in the U.S. government elections, since that is what over 99% of the readers will assume the pro and con statements are comparing it to. Adding cons that compare IRV to one or another alternative method miss-leads the reader. IRV is NO worse than plurality or separate runoffs on this point, (nor is anyone CLAIMING it is) and thus it is not a CON compared to them.

It IS reasonable to have a Wikipedia article that compares ALL methods, but that would have to be an article unto itself, as such lengthy comparisons would clog all of the individual methods articles.

Tbouricius 18:04, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I removed redundant reference to IRV being potentially more complex than other systems to count...didn't need TWO bullets for this (one comparing to plurality and a separate new one for Approval). I removed the specific plug for Approval Voting again...but kept the concept.

I removed the Con bullet saying IRV MAY NOT improve the election process by reducing negative campaigning. IRV is NO worse than plurality or separate runoffs on this point, (nor is anyone CLAIMING it is) and thus it is not a CON compared to them. The fact that some article claims IRV does not make this improvement is an argument that it should not be considered a PRO, but that does not make it a CON, it makes it a neutral.

Tbouricius 14:24, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Discuss specific Con argument re comparison of IRV with another simple possible reform.

I added the following Con argument, because it is actually being made in at least one place where reform is under consideration, Colorado, and that could be documented. At this point, though, I'm not insisting on documentation of Pro and Con arguments, for it is reasonably easy to establish that arguments are actually being made, but it takes time to collect the sources and, since arguments are often not represented in formal publications but exist as letters to the editor and, yes, blogs and other means of communication of political sentiment, requiring "reliable sources" is excessive as a standard. So, this is what I wrote:

• is more complex and expensive to implement than Approval Voting, which also solves the Spoiler effect.

Now, this could be considered a plug for Approval Voting. But it is not stated as a fact, rather as an argument being made. Is it such an argument? Terrill Bouricius did not challenge that in his removal of it. Rather, he gave as his justification:

Removed inappropriate insertion of Approval Voting plug. Key comparison should be to common pluirality or separate runoffs

On what basis is it claimed that the above is true? This is clearly FairVote spin, and here is why. The status quo is usually plurality, possibly with separate runoffs when needed. A reform is proposed. In considering the reform, it would be rational to consider, not only a single proposed reform, but other options as well, and this is what is being done in Colorado, by the Voter Choice Task Force. What Bouricius is doing here is attempting to control *Con* arguments when he has a clear Conflict of Interest for Pro. That's offensive. Let people who are opposed to Instant Runoff Voting control their own arguments! To prevent this, while to allow the reverse, is to make the article unbalanced, spun precisely as FairVote wants.

Again and again, the argument of FairVote against other methods is that "IRV has political momentum, it is the only relevant reform, all other possible reforms are useless and impractical." And, of course, if FairVote is able to control public information about the issue, they just might be right. But that spin does not belong here. I could consider removing the Approval Voting mention, but that would actually obscure the argument, making it take more words, so probably not.

Unless they simplify or clarify or otherwise improve the article, I will remove edits by pro editors to dilute or obscure con arguments that are actually being made in the public arena. It is legitimate to challenge arguments if they are idiosyncratic or straw man arguments, but not otherwise. There remains a major to be worked out on the question of Pro and Con standards, but that issue has not been confronted: What if there is an incorporated assumption in an argument? It's a tricky thing. There is are two incorporated assumptions in the argument Bouricius removed, but I've never seen those assumptions actually challenged, and they are essentially undisputed, as I could establish with sources and commonly known facts, but the place for that is the Approval Voting article, not here.

I edited the Pro arguments, as can be seen, but I did so to *improve* them and make them simple and clear, not to weaken them or censor them. If anyone objects to those edits, be my guest. As I am, in fact, in the world outside, an advocate of other reforms in place of IRV, I wouldn't at all mind pro arguments becoming more obscure and harder to read! I wouldn't start an edit war over it! The fact is, that this section of the article is better if it is clear and simple, even if it includes spin and factual errors. Lies are, in fact, used to promote positions. (But this raises other issues that will take time to address.)

The alternative is to remove the Pro and Con sections entirely. I'm not opposed to that! Note, however, that there are other arguments scattered through the article, and these will require attention as well. At this point, I'm assuming that we will leave arguments in, at least in the Pro and Con sections, until alternatives are set up. Anyone could create an IRV Controversies page and move the material there, but I think that we have more urgent matters to attend to now, and I have limited time.

Similarly Bouricius removed another Con argument:

• does not actually reduce negative campaigning.

His stated reason:

This is not a CON. This is a statement that IRV is neutral on this issue. A claim that it INCREASED negative campaiging would be

If there exists a Pro argument -- as there does -- that IRV reduces negative campaigning, it becomes a Con argument that it does not. Tbouricius is engaging in sophistry. Absolutely, in the absence of a claim that IRV reduces negative campaigning, a con argument that it did not would be silly. But that is not the case. It is claimed, not only here as a Pro argument, but commonly in the public arena, that IRV reduces negative campaigning. Here weasel words might be used, "may reduce negative campaigning," but the clear argument is that if you want to reduce negative campaigning, support IRV. Therefore argument that, in actual practice, it has not reduced negative campaigning becomes quite relevant. This Con argument was originally inserted by another user, a victim of the abusive editing that was going on, and she sourced it. A sock puppet challenged the source and removed it. I was undoing the work of that sock puppet in restoring this argument, which is totally legitimate. Abd 18:36, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Abd is revealing himself with these kinds of edits as quite incapable of handling this responsibility. He's putting in his preferred reform approval voting and is making a "con" an argument that doesn't make any sense, among numerous changes he's making.... His verbosity might be swamping some opposition, but it clearly isn't logic or facts. - Rob Richie

I *hope* I'm revealing myself. Richie was banned from editing here, he must now use various anonymous IP logins to continue to rave. What I put in is an actual argument being made in actual circumstances, and, with time, I can provide citations. For now, it is personal testimony, and, since I'm active in the field, that is actually expert testimony for this narrow purpose: is the argument being made? If it is, then it's legitimate if we are going to have a Pro and Con section. If not, take it out. Of course, he can't at this point, because edits from anonymous IP are locked out to the article and only permitted here. However, if he actually addressed the point, instead of confining himself to trying to discredit me and presuming that his own ignorance, real or professed, is a standard by which edits here can be judged, perhaps we could consider his suggestions. I don't see one there, though. If someone else does, perhaps they can explain it.

Arguments don't have to make sense, it is enough that they are used. However, this one *does* make sense, but the place to discuss that is the Approval Voting article, and, by the way, an SPA showed up there, a very likely continuation of BenB4, a notorious sock who was very active supporting FairVote arguments here and elsewhere. It's going to take time to unravel it all.... and certainly I can't do it alone, nor should I. Abd 04:39, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Nope. No ban for me, Abd. But I can assure you that you would never get the job of writing an article for a real encyclopedia.

(unindent) As usual, Richie comes up with a deniable statement. "No ban for me." But, in fact, he is banned from editing the article at this time, and the only reason there is no personal ban is that he never edited, as far as I know, from a named account, always anonymously. So anonymous edits are banned. There was only one person abusing anonymous edits (other than the sock puppets): Richie. Read the administrative consideration of the case. Richie was the 72.75.x editor. Now, mysteriously, no more edits from that IP. Sure, there could be other explanations, but the most likely one is that the IP was specifically blocked. But it's not "him," it's his IP block, there are possibly 65,000 users with that IP block. *But*, the chances of those users trying to edit Wikipedia in this period are small, and there is a procedure to get unblocked.

As to my job, I have my job, thank you very much. This is a real encyclopedia, in the process of becoming the best in existence, ever, and I hope to be a part of that. Right now, there are obvious problems. Those problems can be solved, I believe that I have the key to doing this. Everything in its own time. Abd 20:24, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

The characteristic problem

A "con" that "IRV does not actually reduce the spoiler problem" belongs in an article about the Politics of Instant Runoff Voting. It is furthermore a claim that needs to be substantiated. What type of spoiler problem? Under what conditions? In what type of party system?

Replacing someone else's propaganda with one's own does not make for NPOV.

To make this entry neutral, there must be a mutual agreement on stripping it down and taking it off the table as a potential propaganda vehicle. If the present trajectory holds, we are simply wasting each other's time. Jack 18:52, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I think something has been overlooked here by Jack. This is a list of *arguments*. Arguments can be facts but they can also be POV claims. All that matters for this particular section is that the argument is actually being made. I'm making it, for starters, but you want some confirmation that others make the same argument? It could be arranged. Not meat puppets, but real people already actively making that argument in many places. Starting with the same place where Richie spoke a little while ago, the Colorado Voter Choice Task Force.

Yes, there is a problem with how the Pro and Con arguments are presented. There is a much better way, but it will take time to work on it. For now, if there are going to be claims in the Pro section, such as "May reduce negative campaigning," there can likewise be claims in the Con section. The introduction to that section creates context, establishing that inclusion in this section is no guarantee at all that anything claimed there is a fact. It is a *fact* that the argument is being made, and if we assume good faith, the testimony of any of us, absent some strong reason to the contrary, should be enough. "Testimony is presumed true unless controverted," you will find in any book of judicial procedure. The testimony here is that the argument is made, and not as a straw man argument. Jack is a legitimate editor of the article, and I trust that we can find agreement.

And if we cannot agree on this section, we can take it out. That's fine with me at this point. I found out that the sock who was cooperating with Richie on keeping anything negative out of the article also managed to get an article on Tactical Voting in IRV deleted. I'm investigating that. I don't think that a particular article like that is necessarily a good idea, but this was selective deletion. The consensus in deleting it was based on the idea that the material there belonged in this article here, if it could be properly sourced or framed. That was impossible until the cabal was broken... Abd 20:24, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

To talk about a spoiler problem, one must define it. In two-party systems with single-winner elections in which three candidates run, the third candidate has relatively little support, and there is a given distribution of preferences on matters of most salience, IRV does solve a problem from the perspective of major-party voters who feel their preferred candidate has been spoiled.

An article on tactical voting in general ostensibly makes sense. I note there is no discussion of tactical voting in the range voting page. I wonder if such a page could go on forever, though. What's tactical depends on who wants to win, what it means to win, and what the wider context is like. Jack 20:43, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

United States

/* United States */ I started this section to allow me to elaborate as to why the edit was necessary. I am correcting part of the reference to North Carolina to match what the ratified law actually says. The following is incorrect and must be removed: "certain judicial vacancies and municipal pilot programs starting in 2007." The version of the law, H1024 that referred to judicial elections is not the version that passed. I have edited the wikipedia article to cite the ratified version of NC's H1024:

• North Carolina adopted a pilot program for instant runoff voting for up to 10 cities in 2007 and up to 10 counties for 2008. "The State Board of Elections shall closely monitor the pilot program established in this section and report its findings and recommendations to the 2007 General Assembly." [8]

Note: In actual practice, for 2007, two cities volunteered to participate in the IRV pilot program. They will use IRV for their municipal elections. There will be no IRV/judicial elections. In 2008, 10 counties would be eligible to participate in the IRV pilot, for their local elections (county commissioners race).

Any edits relating to North Carolina should be referenced to the ratified version of the law, which is "version 7" as listed in the link.

Also, I have noticed that many of the citations under "United States" either do not have links or the links are not to any independent citations, such as the actual laws or news articles. It would be helpful if this was improved.

--Ask10questions 05:14, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Getting this to featured status

I'm not sure that there is anything particularly wrong with the lead, or that we need to improve the pictures. Could this article be ripe for peer review, in preparation for a featured article nomination? Captain Zyrain 17:43, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

One thing I do notice is that we need some more references. Captain Zyrain 17:44, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

RESPONSE: This article reads much better, more like an informational piece, instead of an opinion piece.

Zyrain, two things that I wonder about:

1. The IRV ballot pictured in this article looks like an STV ballot to me. This is not the IRV ballot being used in my state. Perhaps an explanation should accompany the ballot? (But I am not well versed on the different "election methods"). Can you look at the "IRV" sample ballot being used in Cary, North Carolina? Isn't this more like what is used in San Francisco and possibly elsewhere? Shouldn't this be shown as well? http://www.indyweek.com/pdf/CaryBallot.jpg

2. Under the section titled "United States", that shows where IRV has been passed into law or implemented in some form - most of the links go back to the Fair Vote website or family of Fair Vote. Then if you follow these links, you end up with a Fair Vote or related website, but no links to actual independent sources. IMHO, better sourcing should be provided, and would help this article greatly.

Example: The article says that 20 + universities use IRV, but the link takes you to a Fair Vote webpage. IT has links to the different schools, but no links to anything that supports the claim that the schools use IRV.

Shouldn't the links go to a more direct and verifiable source? I have updated the North Carolina information to go to both the legislative web page for the law, and also to a news article about the cities which are trying IRV.

IMHO, adding better links to these items would improve the article greatly. Thanks to you and to all wikipedia editors for your help. --Ask10questions 20:42, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I think it would be good to start a separate article about student governments that use IRV and/or STV and other voting systems. There is enough material out there to write a fairly lengthy and well-sourced article about it. That could be my next project... Captain Zyrain 20:45, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

RESPONSE: What about this entry under United States that already exists in the article:

Dozens of American colleges and universities [7] use IRV, including as of November 2006 more than half of the 30 universities rated most highly by U. S. News and World Report.

Captain Zyrain, this needs better documentation or I think it should be removed. If you click on that link, it takes you to a Fair Vote webpage listing some schools and links to them.

The problem is that clicking on these links does NOT take you to any verification that the schools are using IRV or support it in any way.

So shouldnt the entry be removed unless Fair Vote will provide the independent verification? Thank you. --Ask10questions 20:54, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

You can remove it if you want, although my philosophy about such matters is that if I know the information is correct, even if I don't have the exact details at my fingertips, I leave it there. Accordingly, I would leave the first half of that statement for now. I don't know anything about the part that says "...including as of November 2006 more than half of the 30 universities rated most highly by U. S. News and World Report"; that's the first I've ever heard about that. Captain Zyrain 21:14, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

RESPONSE: I don't wish to remove the entry, but feel that it is questionable. I don't "know" that "Dozens of American colleges and universities use IRV". The reason I don't know is that the only supporting documentation is a webpage at Fair Vote. That webpage does not provide any documentation at all to "prove" its claim. We have already seen that Fair Vote has made some mistakes in this article.

If no one from Fair Vote will step up and provide some real documentation for their claim, what is the appropriate response? Should a notation be made next to the entry stating that independent citation is needed? Or further documentation is needed? --Ask10questions 05:38, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

It's a judgment call. See Wikipedia:Cite_sources#Unsourced_material. Captain Zyrain 12:00, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Avoiding getting accused of a plug

In reference to this edit[9], I would recommend putting a reference to support your statement. See Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words. Captain Zyrain 02:38, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I reverted the edit, actually, before I saw this. The whole question of the comparison between IRV and other methods is problematic; and Approval is truly simple: it can use exactly the same ballot as Plurality, voters can vote exactly the same way they have always voted, if they are in the large majority (in a two-party system), i.e., supporters of a major party, and the counting is really exactly the same as if the election were n-winner, where n is the number of candidates minus one. Or just the number of candidates if write-ins are allowed. But what was there is okay for now. I've though it was important to mention Approval somewhere in the cons, but there is another related mention, where the counting simplicity is mentioned, so for now, compared to the remainder of the work to be done, this was minor. Thanks for the helpful suggestion though. (The original had, and now has, weasel words, to a degree, "some other methods" is much less specific than mentioning at least one! -- and, in fact, I know of no other method which is comparable in this way, except for low-resolution Range.) Abd 02:47, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

RONR: Robert's Rules of Order, Newly Revised

While the language of the reference has been improved, there remain two problems, and, for the record, it has now been shown with evidence that what I was claiming about the method in RONR, i.e., Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised, is, in fact the case. Support for this has come not only from what Captain Zyrain quoted above, for which I'm grateful -- I don't have a copy of RONR, a deficiency I intend to remedy quickly, I only have older editions -- but also from a surprising place, an paper prepared by FairVote that is explicit. But it's also explicit in the proposed legislation for IRV in Vermont, which avoids a constitutional issue by explicitly accepting the vote-counting method that we have said is detailed in Robert's Rules. Exhausted ballots are *not* disregarded. From Vermont S. 108:

(5) If, at the conclusion of the instant runoff tabulation, neither of the last two remaining candidates for the office of governor, lieutenant governor, or treasurer receives a majority of the votes cast, excluding blank and spoiled votes, the court shall prepare a report of no election. The report and the tabulations performed by the committee shall be forwarded to the official canvassing committee appointed by the general assembly, pursuant to Chapter II, § 47 of the Vermont constitution, and to the full general assembly for its use in the election of the governor, lieutenant governor, or treasurer if it desires. The general assembly shall proceed to elect one of the three candidates for whom the greatest number of votes has been returned.

The method is batch elimination of all but the top two. Now, if eliminated ballots were disregarded in determining the majority required by the Vermont Constitution, there would be no possibility of majority failure in the "instant runoff." Now, since batch elimination was used, what are the "three candidates," I find it quite unclear. "Votes," for the purpose of the final provision, are not clearly defined. I would have to assume, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, though, that it refers to first place votes. This *could* be a mess, I have not examined it in detail.

The ballot instructions state:

“In addition to your first‑choice candidate, you may rank alternate choice candidates if you wish. Marking a second or other choice cannot help defeat your first choice.”

Now, with the rules given, the statement on the ballot is not exactly true. I wonder if they had any election methods experts look at this? Suppose your favorite is one of the top three candidates. Before your vote, the situation is such that your favorite will be eliminated, and the other two candidates are tied in the top-two round. If you have only ranked your favorite, your favorite will be included in the vote in the Assembly, and thus could be elected. If you, on the other hand, vote for either of the others in second rank, that one will get an extra vote and win the final round, and it will not go to the assembly. My point is not that this is "bad," but that the ballot instruction is incorrect. Your second rank vote *can* harm, it appears, your first preference.

Mr. Bouricius was a Vermont legislator, perhaps he might comment on this!

We now now have multiple sources regarding the treatment of exhausted ballots when the underlying law (in the above case the Vermont Constitution) requires election by a majority. Having a majority in the final round does not satisfy the majority election requirement, and all the wind blown here on that point was, quite simply, off. There was the law proposed in Vermont, above, there was the material from Robert's Rules, to wit:

"All illegal votes of the type described in the preceding paragraph – that is, illegal votes cast by legal voters – are taken into account in determining the number of votes cast for purposes of computing the majority."

Now, if illegal votes are counted, what about votes for a candidate who is eliminated? It is *quite* clear that these are legal votes and that they are not to be disregarding in determining if a winner has been found by a majority. In running the "instant runoff", the process still leaves those votes in place, they were legally cast, and if a majority of voters have not cast a vote, of whatever rank, for the winner, there is no majority winner.

If Abd can find an authoritative interpretation of RONR that insists an exhausted ballot must be counted as a no vote against all remiaing candidates, then I will reverse my position.

Will he reverse his position? That's up to him. He is free to remain stationary for the rest of his life, I suppose! But I'd hope, for his health, that he gets some exercise! :-)

There is one more source I found, in a surprising place, given how much effort has been expended by FairVote supporters in blocking my interpretation of the Rules:

From a FairVote article[10], about the Vermont situation:

Since voting for alternative choices is proposed to be optional, it is still possible for there to be an outcome after the transfers in which there is still no majority, and with no candidate receiving "the major part of the votes" there would have been "no election" and the General Assembly would proceed to elect from among the top three candidates.

Clearly, the author of this report considers exhausted ballots to be part of the "majority," and that is actually a clear constitutional requirement in Vermont.

IRV *does* make it easier to get a true majority winner, but by no means does it guarantee it. Some rules guarantee that any winner is by a majority, such as the Robert's Rules variant and what has been proposed in Vermont, some do not, such as San Francisco and other places, declaring a winner based on not much more, as I recall, than a third of the vote. In Vermont, the "runoff" is not a public election, though it *is* secret ballot, as I recall, in the Assembly.

Here, there are three issues:

(1) Is what is described in Robert's Rules "IRV"? It has never been contested by me that it is quite *similar* to "IRV," but what is "IRV"? It appears that it is a family of methods, differing in a number of details, yet IRV has been promoted as if it were a single thing. Thus a "recommendation" of "Robert's Rules", being legitimately for only one of a number of variants, will be taken by an unsophisticated reader as a recommendation of that "IRV" which is on their local ballot. Is it? Maybe, maybe not. Depends on those devilish details. IRV with majority requirement and a real runoff is, in my opinion, substantially better than IRV which can elect by plurality, and yet IRV has been sold as guaranteeing a majority winner.

Now, we can fix this, but at a price: if we defined "IRV" as a class of methods, not just one method, we can then describe the variations, and IRV Plus runoff in the event of majority failure is thus a form of "IRV," and thus we can acknowledge that Robert's Rules discusses or describes it.

This does require changes in the article though; for example, "majority" must be redefined in the introduction. I'll do that, for starters. Then we must describe the important variations, i.e., batch elimination vs. sequential elimination, majority required (and thus possible further process) or plurality accepted.

Plus, of course, there is the matter of compulsory ranking. Not an option here, but this is not merely a U.S. article.

Summary of first point: when we mention IRV in actual use or as described in some place, we should mention the variation involved. The difference is not small and some of the claims made about IRV are true for some variants and not for others.

(2) Is it a recommendation? We already resolved that by removing the term, which is at least a bit misleading given what we have seen about the general opinion in Robert's Rules about preferential voting. Better than plurality, but not the best. "Recommended over plurality"? Again, the exclusiveness of the comparison is POV. Robert's Rules says more on the subject, and "recommended over plurality" would imply that Robert's Rules is saying, if you are using plurality, switch to "IRV." And they don't say that, they simply note that preferential voting -- which would include Condorcet methods, for example, is better than plurality, not "IRV is better than Plurality."

(3) The placement of this and other usage examples. Putting it in the beginning creates a necessity to constrict what is said to something very brief, making it more difficult to avoid improper implications. It takes a few more words to be fully accurate with this. Does this belong in the introduction? Why? That is a real question, not an assertion that it *doesn't* belong there!

I'll make some edits in correspondence with what I've written above, for the matter of majority does belong in the article, it is part of the method definition. I won't finish that today, but anyone else may work on it, and I think editor Zyrain has the understanding and did a pretty good job the first time with explaining this. Abd 04:07, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

RONR allows exhausted ballots to be included in the denominator when calculating a majority threshold. That has never been in dispute. The point is that the bylaws must specifically authorize the use of preferntial voting, and should also specify how exhausted ballots are handled, and thus whether repeat voting may be necessary.

As for the Vermont S.108 and FairVote articles Abd mentions...I am the author of all of those. IRV certainly CAN be crafted to have exhausted ballots lead to the possibility of declaring no majority (of all ballots cast in the original election) as Abd points out, and thus ending with a "plurality" outcome (and then writing rules that either call for a subsequent process to fill the seat, or declare the final plurality leader the winner). But it is also reasonable to draft bylaws or statutes to follow the "exhausted = blank" option (discounting ballots that express no opinion about which candidate is preferrable at that stage of the tally process) to make that one election decisive. "Majority" means of those expressing an opinion. We don't count registered voters who sit out the election entirely), nor stay-home voters who cast ballots in the first round of a two-election runoff (where the "majority" winner might get fewer votes than the ultimate loser got in the first round of voting).

Hypothetically the ballot instructions could say "Rank as many candidates as you have an opinion about, but leaving some candidates unranked will be deemed an abstention if none of your ranked candidates are in the final round of counting." Badly worded, but you get the idea. I am not proposing any of that for the article...just typing out loud.

Perhaps the compromise is to say that "RONR details an IRV tabulation method as one example of a variety of preferential voting methods, and states that preferential voting allows for a more representative outcome than plurality elections"???

Tbouricius 14:57, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't think the details of the sample preferential voting procedure described on p. 411-414 of RONR are particularly important. That probably was not the best example the authors of RONR could have included, for the reasons described above (i.e. exhausted ballots potentially causing the vote to have to be taken again, and preferential bloc voting being used for multi-person offices instead of single transferable vote.) They should have included a description of IRV with exhausted ballots not being used to determine the number of votes needed to get a majority (i.e. not counting as illegal ballots) and STV being used for the multi-person offices. The authors of RONR wrote an article in one of the National Association of Parliamentarians publications several months back explaining their criteria for including procedures in RONR. Basically, they are not allowed to introduce new procedures; the book can only reflect procedures that are already in use. In accordance with that spirit, they probably should have included an example of a more mainstream method of preferential voting. Captain Zyrain 16:42, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Probably what increases the murkiness of this discussion is that RONR mentions preferential voting in several different places throughout the text, with slightly different commentary/wording each time. Probably what we should do is just post the text of those references somewhere (e.g. at Talk:Instant-runoff voting/Pertinent RONR quotations so that when we're discussing it, we can make reference to those particular parts and we're all "on the same page". Captain Zyrain 16:51, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Difficult to understand

I find the language on lines 11 and 29 of this diff to be confusing (and this is coming from the guy with the high score in the 1996 Virginia FBLA parliamentary procedure event, who used to read RONR for fun). The whole plurality/majority distinction gets confusing when mixed with IRV because most people view plurality as an alternative system to IRV. So there are some jurisdictions that actually use that example provided in RONR, in which re-balloting is required if there are enough exhausted ballots to prevent anyone from getting a majority? I was going to say, If not, then the details of that example are not particularly relevant or important. It is just provided by way of example, and that example is not binding on an organization unless someone copies that language into their bylaws. I would hope that any good parliamentarian helping their client write bylaws would advise them to steer clear of setting up a situation where re-balloting could potentially be required for IRV. It wouldn't be so "instant" in that case, would it? Captain Zyrain 04:36, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Spoiler/vote splitting

IRV, it is argued:

* reduces the spoiler effect of plurality voting;

* .....

* Can help third parties gain traction with the electorate by eliminating vote splitting.

Don't these two arguments go hand-in-hand? Should we combine them into one? Captain Zyrain 06:26, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

More images

I have asked for some more GFDL-compatible images from FairVote, so hopefully those are coming soon. If anyone else has good and pertinent images, please feel free to contribute them. Thanks, Captain Zyrain 07:43, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Comment on POV tag removal

I'm using a Palm to write this, and if I attempt to edit the article, large chunks of text could disappear. But I can add new sections like this. The POV tag should remain. POV and political purpose are woven through the article in sometimes subtle ways. The very name IRV was a political device. By labelling a series of methods (forms of preferential voting with sometimes very substantial and significant differences in details), it can be claimed that, say, Robert's Rules describes "IRV" when, in fact, what is being proposed in many places is importantly different from what RR describes. *If* bylaws permit plurality victories -- which RR dislikes -- then, yes, what is described is "IRV," as it was described in the article.

The "Con" argument about negative campaigning has been put in this article -- with source! -- and deleted many times, by Rob Richie and by the sock puppets. We should, indeed, review the whole procedure for dealing with arguments, but the section is worded such that the needed level of proof is low, and, I would argue that the testimony of any editor that an argument is actually being made is prima facie evidence that it's being made, unless this is controverted. This, in fact, could be established as a general principle for "arguments." Yes, it is better if there are references. Similarly, the Pro argument about campaign expenses, I think I have seen. I think it's false and even silly, but ... if it is being made, it should be there. So it would reduce, in this case, to "who says so?" For simplicity, in this section, we are, I suggest, allowing arguments any of us recognize as actually being made to remain.

I'd recommend that Captain Zyrain study the history of this article and Talk on it to see what has been discussed. There has been specific discussion of the Con argument negating the "negative campaign" Pro argument. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abd (talk • contribs) 14:32, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Verifiability says that unsourced information can be dealt with by deleting it or by adding the "fact" template. I probably am a little too impatient about giving people time to find sources for information they add. On the other hand, I think that this article is so susceptible to edit wars and challenges of the veracity of information that we should pretty much cite sources for everything at this point, preferably using the ref template, and using hidden comments if nothing else. (Hidden comments are the icon fourth from the right on that little toolbar that shows up when you're editing a page.) Plus I have nominated this article for peer review, as a prelude to a featured article nomination, and since we are entering that process I think we should raise the bar a bit, relative to how we would treat other articles. Once it gets posted to Wikipedia:Featured article candidates, reviewers will start nailing us on verifiability if that's a weak point. See Wikipedia:Featured article criteria. Captain Zyrain 16:04, 14 October 2007 (UTC)