Fwd: Legacy IRV limitations
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Michael Ossipoff email9648742@gmail.com
Date: Sun, Dec 17, 2023 at 16:14
Subject: Re: [EM] Legacy IRV limitations
To: Michael Garman michael.garman@rankthevote.us
The falsity of FairVote’s lie is well-known among the electoral-reform
community.
The term “Know-It-All” is properly used to refer to someone making
incorrect statements. Oops!!! You forgot to specify the incorrect statement.
“The perfect is the enemy of the good”?
You evidently think fraud is good.
I wasn’t criticizing STE. I was criticizing fraud.
…intentional lying to sell a product.
On Sun, Dec 17, 2023 at 16:05 Michael Garman michael.garman@rankthevote.us
wrote:
Sanctimonious know-it-alls like you who let the perfect be the enemy of
the good are the greatest obstacle to any progress whatsoever.
On Sun, Dec 17, 2023 at 7:04 PM Michael Ossipoff email9648742@gmail.com
wrote:
I didn’t say that Successive-Topcount-Elimination (STE) is a fraud. I
said that RCV is a fraud.
RCV isn’t STE. RCV, what FairVote is selling, is promoted with the
intentional lie your vote for Middle over Worst is guaranteed to help
Middle against Worst if Favorite doesn’t win.
i.e. FairVote is selling RCV as Condorcet. RCV is a nonexistent
Condorcet-properties method being fraudulently sold by FairVote.
Thus, RCV is a fraud.
Sorry, but I can’t abide dishonesty. Fraud shouldn’t be supported.
Don’t let a fraudulently-promoted product be successfully sold to the
people of Oregon.
On Sun, Dec 17, 2023 at 15:39 Michael Garman <
michael.garman@rankthevote.us> wrote:
Oh come on Michael. You can’t claim the system itself is “fraud” because
you dislike one of the many organizations that advocate for it.
On Sun, Dec 17, 2023 at 6:37 PM Michael Ossipoff email9648742@gmail.com
wrote:
Yes, many RCV opponents were formerly RCV advocates…until they found
out that they’d been lied to by FairVote.
As I often say, RCV’s worst problem is FairVote.
Lying to sell something is called fraud.
RCV is an intentional fraud, & yes, people don’t like that when they
find out.
On Sun, Dec 17, 2023 at 12:20 Richard, the VoteFair guy <
electionmethods@votefair.org> wrote:
My response to Michael's second paragraph below is admittedly a "rant"
that's intended to reveal insights about what's going on under the
surface of election-method reform in the U.S., especially in Oregon.
In
other words, what I've written in response to Michael's second
paragraph
is not directed at Michael.
On 12/17/2023 9:50 AM, Michael Garman wrote:
I wouldn’t know as I’m not affiliated with the RCVRC.
To Michael: Thank you for this clarification, and for taking time to
educate me about the lack of official collaboration between RCVRC and
FairVote. Also, I'm very pleased you are helping NYC to adopt ranked
choice ballots!
It’s extremely shortsighted of you to keep letting the perfect be
the
enemy of the good. Attacking FairVote as part of a conspiracy
instead of
offering constructive criticism to the most powerful election
reformers
out there is going to ensure that we remain stuck with FPTP. You
have no
evidence for your claims of any kind of collusion — because it
doesn’t
exist.
For those who don't know, here in Oregon a group of election-method
reformers in the city of Eugene are strongly pushing STAR voting, with
lots of financial assistance.
One of their two valid criticisms of IRV is that current versions of
IRV
software do not allow giving the same preference level to two or more
candidates. They push STAR voting by saying STAR ballots do allow
this
kind of marking. And they point to "spoiled ballots" in real IRV
elections as evidence of the importance of this issue (even though an
overvote is just one way in which a ranked choice ballot can be
categorized as "spoiled").
If the FairVote organization were more honest about the importance of
being able to rank multiple candidates at the same preference level,
the
fans of STAR voting would not have been able to push IRV fans into
becoming STAR fans.
History: Interestingly the primary financial backer behind STAR
voting
started out as an IRV fan. I know this because about 20 years ago a
friend in Eugene sent me a newspaper clipping from the Eugene
newspaper
in which that person, the son of a university president there, was
promoting "instant runoff voting." The friend in Eugene had heard me
promoting to her and other friends in Eugene what are now called
"ranked
choice ballots." Back then I lived in Corvallis, but traveled to
dances, and to dates, in Eugene so often that some people in Eugene
thought I lived there. FWIW, I also promoted "order-of-preference
ballots" to friends and dancers in Corvallis, where IRV was adopted
later after I moved away.
My opposition is against the misinformation about so-called
"overvotes."
I'm not opposed to IRV. In fact I've helped to push IRV through the
Oregon legislature.
For about two decades I've been offering constructive criticism to IRV
fans and the leader of FairVote, but my suggestions are regarded as
not
important enough for them to seriously consider.
I've also taught lots of people in Oregon about the unfair results of
IRV in Burlington VT and the recent special election in Alaska.
Yet instead of trying to block IRV I'm promoting the idea of adopting
IRV and then, later, improving the counting software.
That weakness of IRV can be solved easily by eliminating "pairwise
losing candidates" when they occur. I'm well aware that this
refinement
will take longer to remedy compared to correctly counting overvotes.
In the meantime the Oregon fans of STAR voting criticize IRV as being
vulnerable to the "center squeeze effect." Yet this effect will
disappear from IRV when pairwise losing candidates are eliminated when
they occur.
So I find myself attacking misrepresentations -- basically "white
lies"
-- from both the FairVote organization and the fans of STAR voting
(who
loosely are affiliated with The Equal Vote Coalition), both of whom
are
well-funded. To be balanced here, The Election Science Foundation
also
promotes misrepresentations.
To repeat, I'm not attacking the organizations. I'm attacking their
misrepresentations.
I realize that sometimes those organizations are trying to keep things
simple when they talk to voters. Yet some of those simplifications
become oversimplifications and misrepresentations.
It's important to understand that the fans of STAR voting wouldn't be
getting so many signatures on their current statewide petition to
adopt
STAR voting for all of Oregon if RCVRC and FairVote had not been so
adamant that "overvotes" cannot be counted.
And STAR fans wouldn't have been able to get enough signatures on
their
petition to adopt STAR voting for Eugene elections if they hadn't
co-opted IRV fans (including promoting STAR as a "better kind of
ranked
choice voting"). That Eugene-specific petition-based referendum has
already qualified to be on Eugene's spring 2024 ballot.
To clarify, I'm not opposed to Eugene adopting STAR voting; rather I'm
opposed to STAR fans trying to block the statewide ranked choice
ballot
initiative on the November 2024 ballot. They are doing this by
pushing
a separate statewide STAR petition.
That's a misrepresentation because they criticize ranked choice voting
as if overvotes cannot be counted, even though the already-scheduled
November 2024 referendum avoids any mention of "overvotes" so that the
wording is compatible with future software.
FairVote's myth about overvotes not being countable has contributed to
this attack against IRV.
Yes, I'm frustrated. And I'm angry. I've been promoting ranked
choice
ballots for three decades, although previously under the names
"order-of-preference ballots" and "1-2-3 ballots."
Finally Portland Oregon has adopted IRV for the mayoral election and
STV
for city council elections. (In spite of opposition from a fan of
STAR
voting who was on the charter amendment committee.)
And the Oregon state legislature has passed a ranked-choice-voting
referendum that will appear statewide on the November ballot -- with
no
mention of the word "overvote" in the counting details, because of my
influence. (Fans of STAR voting also testified against this bill.)
The misinformation coming from FairVote, RCVRC, STAR fans, and the
Election Science Foundation is undermining support for Portland's
reforms and the statewide adoption of ranked choice ballots for
electing
our governor and our members of Congress.
I'm not intending to suggest there is any conspiracy between the
organizations. Yet I do suspect that some of the donations going to
these organizations would decline if they were to increase cooperation
and avoid misrepresentation.
I continue to believe that the Oregon legislature being the first
state
legislature to vote in favor of allowing voters to adopt ranked choice
ballots for key Oregon elections is a hugely beneficial tipping point
for civilization! (Other states that have adopted ranked choice
voting
have had to do it by gathering signatures on petitions.)
My anger is directed at the people who undermine this progress toward
adopting IRV as a stepping stone to better software.
That better software will correctly count mythical "overvotes."
And eventually it will avoid easy-to-avoid IIA (independence of
irrelevant alternatives) failures -- which get criticized as either
Condorcet failures or "center squeeze effect" failures.
My request to all election-method reform organizations and individuals
is to please stop the misrepresentations, at least to Oregon voters,
so
the November 2024 ranked choice voting referendum passes with support
from a majority of Oregon voters.
To everyone still reading this far, thank you for reading my rant.
Richard Fobes
The VoteFair guy
On 12/17/2023 9:50 AM, Michael Garman wrote:
I wouldn’t know as I’m not affiliated with the RCVRC.
It’s extremely shortsighted of you to keep letting the perfect be
the
enemy of the good. Attacking FairVote as part of a conspiracy
instead of
offering constructive criticism to the most powerful election
reformers
out there is going to ensure that we remain stuck with FPTP. You
have no
evidence for your claims of any kind of collusion — because it
doesn’t
exist.
On Sun, Dec 17, 2023 at 12:35 PM Richard, the VoteFair guy
<electionmethods@votefair.org mailto:electionmethods@votefair.org>
wrote:
On 12/16/2023 9:04 PM, Michael Garman wrote:
The Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center is an independent
entity
fully
unaffiliated with FairVote. Hope this helps!
Thank you, Michael, for clarifying that the Ranked Choice Voting
Resource Center RCVRC is not officially(!) affiliated with
FairVote.
Then why does RCVRC have the same misunderstanding that the
leader of
the FairVote organization has been pushing for decades?
Especially, I'd like to understand why RCVRC pushed onto the
Portland
Oregon election officials the idea that skipping(!) "overvotes"
was a
recommended option. That's worse than ignoring the remaining
rankings!
That skipping option works in Australia where a voter
hand-writes a
number next to each candidate's name. (They don't have to worry
about
"ballot real estate" because there is just one box for each
candidate.)
But it doesn't make sense here in the U.S. where we mark ovals in
"choice" columns. And where ballot real estate is very
important.
(In fact, the upcoming statewide referendum for Oregon adopts
RCV for
just a limited number of contests because election officials were
concerned that adopting it would cause Oregon ballots to require
more
than one sheet of paper.)
I see that your website -- RankTheVoteNYC.org -- shows that in
your NYC
elections "The scanner will reject any ballot where you mark
more than
one candidate for the same rank – in other words, if you fill
in more
than one oval in the same column."
Does RCVRC not know that it's easy to correctly count those
marks?
(Just pair up equivalent ballots and allocate those "paired"
ballots in
equal numbers to those same-ranked candidates.)
Richard Fobes
The VoteFair guy
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