"Instant-runoff voting" article renamed to "Ranked-choice voting" on English Wikipedia
I gather that "Instant Runoff Voting" was originally a promotional name
in the US that after being used for a long time was changed (for some
reason I forget) to Ranked Choice Voting.
So I don't see the name change as negative, unless it results in more
people reading the horrible pompous hatchet-job of an article.
I now like to refer to the method as simply "Hare". I rate it as much
better than FPP, Approval, Score, Bucklin, "STAR Voting", and some of
the relatively bad Condorcet methods (such as Min-Max Margins).
Chris B.
On 18/10/2024 2:34 pm, Michael Garman wrote:
There are far more important things to worry about than this. That’s
my two cents.
On Fri, Oct 18, 2024 at 12:03 AM Rob Lanphier roblan@gmail.com wrote:
Hi folks,
Those of us who pay attention to voting related articles on
Wikipedia recently noticed this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked-choice_voting
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked%E2%80%90choice_voting>
It would seem that Closed Limelike Curves made an executive
decision to rename the "Instant-runoff voting" article to
"Ranked-choice voting". As I've said in at least one
conversation: this isn't a hill that I'm going to die on. That
said, based on a recent conversation I'm thinking of, there's at
least one person that IS willing to die on the hill.
Thoughts?
Rob
----
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for
list info
Election-Methods mailing list - seehttps://electorama.com/em for list info
On 2024-10-18 17:38, Chris Benham wrote:
I gather that "Instant Runoff Voting" was originally a promotional name
in the US that after being used for a long time was changed (for some
reason I forget) to Ranked Choice Voting.
From what I understand, one of the public-facing organizations (might
have been the LWV) suggested the name because, to the voter, the
characteristic feature is that you rank the candidates. And then
FairVote found out that it helped their advocacy, so it stuck.
-km
The Electowiki article covers this. The name IRV is a promotional name
pushed by FairVote in the early 2000s. The name never really caught on and
was never used by anyone but FairVote and Wikipedia, because the first
place to adopt it (San Francisco) renamed it "Ranked-choice voting" because
they thought the name IRV would confuse people into expecting the results
to be released "instantly" (immediately after polls closed). The term IRV
has never seen much widespread use outside voting theory circles and
FairVote.
On Fri, Oct 18, 2024 at 9:09 AM Kristofer Munsterhjelm <
km-elmet@munsterhjelm.no> wrote:
On 2024-10-18 17:38, Chris Benham wrote:
I gather that "Instant Runoff Voting" was originally a promotional name
in the US that after being used for a long time was changed (for some
reason I forget) to Ranked Choice Voting.
From what I understand, one of the public-facing organizations (might
have been the LWV) suggested the name because, to the voter, the
characteristic feature is that you rank the candidates. And then
FairVote found out that it helped their advocacy, so it stuck.
-km
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list
info
Precise definitions are helpful but often require more words and care than people take.
What is the area of a circle?
Many mathematicians would answer zero since for them whether you meant a Euclidean or taxicab metric circle, or a circle based on some other distance function, a circle is a "wire" or piece of string, which is one dimensional and will have zero area - though the meaning of the word area is not so easy. It would better to ask for the area of the region enclosed by a Euclidean circle if the answer you had in mind was (pi)r^2.
IRV can mean different things to different people and as a system can have a different "feel" depending on whether one allows voters to rank different choices at the same "level" and/or "truncate" by not ranking all the candidates. I have sometimes used the phrase "sequential run-off" for this method but that is sloppy because one can design sequential run-off methds based on first place votes, last place votes or the "Borda Count."
Definitions can be chosen for clarity, brevity, to mislead or confuse, etc.
Regards,
Joe
——————————————
Joseph Malkevitch
Email:
jmalkevitch@york.cuny.edu
Web page:
http://york.cuny.edu/~malk/
From: Election-Methods election-methods-bounces@lists.electorama.com on behalf of Closed Limelike Curves closed.limelike.curves@gmail.com
Sent: Friday, October 18, 2024 1:05 PM
To: Kristofer Munsterhjelm km-elmet@munsterhjelm.no
Cc: Chris Benham cbenhamau@yahoo.com.au; election-methods@lists.electorama.com election-methods@lists.electorama.com; Rob Lanphier roblan@gmail.com
Subject: Re: [EM] "Instant-runoff voting" article renamed to "Ranked-choice voting" on English Wikipedia
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The Electowiki article covers this. The name IRV is a promotional name pushed by FairVote in the early 2000s. The name never really caught on and was never used by anyone but FairVote and Wikipedia, because the first place to adopt it (San Francisco) renamed it "Ranked-choice voting" because they thought the name IRV would confuse people into expecting the results to be released "instantly" (immediately after polls closed). The term IRV has never seen much widespread use outside voting theory circles and FairVote.
On Fri, Oct 18, 2024 at 9:09 AM Kristofer Munsterhjelm <km-elmet@munsterhjelm.nomailto:km-elmet@munsterhjelm.no> wrote:
On 2024-10-18 17:38, Chris Benham wrote:
I gather that "Instant Runoff Voting" was originally a promotional name
in the US that after being used for a long time was changed (for some
reason I forget) to Ranked Choice Voting.
From what I understand, one of the public-facing organizations (might
have been the LWV) suggested the name because, to the voter, the
characteristic feature is that you rank the candidates. And then
FairVote found out that it helped their advocacy, so it stuck.
-km
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/emhttps://urldefense.com/v3/__https://electorama.com/em__;!!NFZiyfBF5EK0!nGKXTeDSijTjc9vlGa_fikPTJABjXzn18G6Q6LyVHHLDSWL6Kp8eErHqhC4QEhK9406se_9CZCEGB2RgiQ0bce9nlzOvxAdHBA$ for list info
But, in any case, my main comments on this are that Wikipedia policy is
actually very clear on this issue.
- Wikipedia requires using the common name for a thing, even if it's a
misnomer or less-than-ideal. For example, the articles are titled "morning
sickness" and "Panama hat" instead of "Nausea and vomiting of pregnancy" or
"That hat from Ecuador sometimes called a Panama hat". This helps both with
search results and with ensuring neutrality in naming disputes: the San
Francisco Board of Elections would argue "RCV" is accurate because voters
do rank the candidates, but that "IRV" is inaccurate because the results
aren't instantly available. - Wikipedia requires following the lead of a majority of reliable sources.
Overwhelmingly, reliable sources (e.g. media, academic papers, and so on)
use and explicitly define RCV to mean IRV, not ranked voting methods in
general.
On Fri, Oct 18, 2024 at 10:05 AM Closed Limelike Curves <
closed.limelike.curves@gmail.com> wrote:
The Electowiki article covers this. The name IRV is a promotional name
pushed by FairVote in the early 2000s. The name never really caught on and
was never used by anyone but FairVote and Wikipedia, because the first
place to adopt it (San Francisco) renamed it "Ranked-choice voting" because
they thought the name IRV would confuse people into expecting the results
to be released "instantly" (immediately after polls closed). The term IRV
has never seen much widespread use outside voting theory circles and
FairVote.
On Fri, Oct 18, 2024 at 9:09 AM Kristofer Munsterhjelm <
km-elmet@munsterhjelm.no> wrote:
On 2024-10-18 17:38, Chris Benham wrote:
I gather that "Instant Runoff Voting" was originally a promotional name
in the US that after being used for a long time was changed (for some
reason I forget) to Ranked Choice Voting.
From what I understand, one of the public-facing organizations (might
have been the LWV) suggested the name because, to the voter, the
characteristic feature is that you rank the candidates. And then
FairVote found out that it helped their advocacy, so it stuck.
-km
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list
info
For amusement, a few minutes ago I entered the string
IRV voting
into
Google Scholar
And it claimed to find "about" 14500 citations.
Regards,
Joe
——————————————
Joseph Malkevitch
Email:
jmalkevitch@york.cuny.edu
Web page:
http://york.cuny.edu/~malk/
From: Election-Methods election-methods-bounces@lists.electorama.com on behalf of Closed Limelike Curves closed.limelike.curves@gmail.com
Sent: Friday, October 18, 2024 4:12 PM
To: Kristofer Munsterhjelm km-elmet@munsterhjelm.no
Cc: Chris Benham cbenhamau@yahoo.com.au; election-methods@lists.electorama.com election-methods@lists.electorama.com; Rob Lanphier roblan@gmail.com
Subject: Re: [EM] "Instant-runoff voting" article renamed to "Ranked-choice voting" on English Wikipedia
- This email originates from a sender outside of CUNY. Verify the sender before replying or clicking on links and attachments. *
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But, in any case, my main comments on this are that Wikipedia policy is actually very clear on this issue.
- Wikipedia requires using the common name for a thing, even if it's a misnomer or less-than-ideal. For example, the articles are titled "morning sickness" and "Panama hat" instead of "Nausea and vomiting of pregnancy" or "That hat from Ecuador sometimes called a Panama hat". This helps both with search results and with ensuring neutrality in naming disputes: the San Francisco Board of Elections would argue "RCV" is accurate because voters do rank the candidates, but that "IRV" is inaccurate because the results aren't instantly available.
- Wikipedia requires following the lead of a majority of reliable sources. Overwhelmingly, reliable sources (e.g. media, academic papers, and so on) use and explicitly define RCV to mean IRV, not ranked voting methods in general.
On Fri, Oct 18, 2024 at 10:05 AM Closed Limelike Curves <closed.limelike.curves@gmail.commailto:closed.limelike.curves@gmail.com> wrote:
The Electowiki article covers this. The name IRV is a promotional name pushed by FairVote in the early 2000s. The name never really caught on and was never used by anyone but FairVote and Wikipedia, because the first place to adopt it (San Francisco) renamed it "Ranked-choice voting" because they thought the name IRV would confuse people into expecting the results to be released "instantly" (immediately after polls closed). The term IRV has never seen much widespread use outside voting theory circles and FairVote.
On Fri, Oct 18, 2024 at 9:09 AM Kristofer Munsterhjelm <km-elmet@munsterhjelm.nomailto:km-elmet@munsterhjelm.no> wrote:
On 2024-10-18 17:38, Chris Benham wrote:
I gather that "Instant Runoff Voting" was originally a promotional name
in the US that after being used for a long time was changed (for some
reason I forget) to Ranked Choice Voting.
From what I understand, one of the public-facing organizations (might
have been the LWV) suggested the name because, to the voter, the
characteristic feature is that you rank the candidates. And then
FairVote found out that it helped their advocacy, so it stuck.
-km
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/emhttps://urldefense.com/v3/__https://electorama.com/em__;!!NFZiyfBF5EK0!j2ylC81dWVCE0lVrjfjucxRVrgkdEgpwY9Z50svcLuLGoPE1GNGUXhEELgrdqLP0-b7Ws930PDhSw1YqswlgLpBxICmc3kxIXw$ for list info
Google page counts are often off by orders of magnitude, unfortunately.
But I'm also not saying no academics use the term IRV, just that, in recent
years, "RCV" is definitely dominant.
On Fri, Oct 18, 2024 at 2:13 PM Joseph Malkevitch jmalkevitch@york.cuny.edu
wrote:
For amusement, a few minutes ago I entered the string
IRV voting
into
Google Scholar
And it claimed to find "about" 14500 citations.
Regards,
Joe
——————————————
Joseph Malkevitch
Email:
jmalkevitch@york.cuny.edu
Web page:
http://york.cuny.edu/~malk/
From: Election-Methods election-methods-bounces@lists.electorama.com
on behalf of Closed Limelike Curves closed.limelike.curves@gmail.com
Sent: Friday, October 18, 2024 4:12 PM
To: Kristofer Munsterhjelm km-elmet@munsterhjelm.no
Cc: Chris Benham cbenhamau@yahoo.com.au;
election-methods@lists.electorama.com <
election-methods@lists.electorama.com>; Rob Lanphier roblan@gmail.com
Subject: Re: [EM] "Instant-runoff voting" article renamed to
"Ranked-choice voting" on English Wikipedia
** This email originates from a sender outside of CUNY. Verify the sender
before replying or clicking on links and attachments. **
This email originated from election-methods-bounces@lists.electorama.com,
a sender outside of CUNY. Never send login credentials, financial
information, or sensitive information by email. Report suspicious email to
reportspam@york.cuny.edu
But, in any case, my main comments on this are that Wikipedia policy is
actually very clear on this issue.
- Wikipedia requires using the common name for a thing, even if it's a
misnomer or less-than-ideal. For example, the articles are titled "morning
sickness" and "Panama hat" instead of "Nausea and vomiting of pregnancy" or
"That hat from Ecuador sometimes called a Panama hat". This helps both with
search results and with ensuring neutrality in naming disputes: the San
Francisco Board of Elections would argue "RCV" is accurate because voters
do rank the candidates, but that "IRV" is inaccurate because the results
aren't instantly available. - Wikipedia requires following the lead of a majority of reliable
sources. Overwhelmingly, reliable sources (e.g. media, academic papers, and
so on) use and explicitly define RCV to mean IRV, not ranked voting methods
in general.
On Fri, Oct 18, 2024 at 10:05 AM Closed Limelike Curves <
closed.limelike.curves@gmail.com> wrote:
The Electowiki article covers this. The name IRV is a promotional name
pushed by FairVote in the early 2000s. The name never really caught on and
was never used by anyone but FairVote and Wikipedia, because the first
place to adopt it (San Francisco) renamed it "Ranked-choice voting" because
they thought the name IRV would confuse people into expecting the results
to be released "instantly" (immediately after polls closed). The term IRV
has never seen much widespread use outside voting theory circles and
FairVote.
On Fri, Oct 18, 2024 at 9:09 AM Kristofer Munsterhjelm <
km-elmet@munsterhjelm.no> wrote:
On 2024-10-18 17:38, Chris Benham wrote:
I gather that "Instant Runoff Voting" was originally a promotional name
in the US that after being used for a long time was changed (for some
reason I forget) to Ranked Choice Voting.
From what I understand, one of the public-facing organizations (might
have been the LWV) suggested the name because, to the voter, the
characteristic feature is that you rank the candidates. And then
FairVote found out that it helped their advocacy, so it stuck.
-km
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://electorama.com/em__;!!NFZiyfBF5EK0!j2ylC81dWVCE0lVrjfjucxRVrgkdEgpwY9Z50svcLuLGoPE1GNGUXhEELgrdqLP0-b7Ws930PDhSw1YqswlgLpBxICmc3kxIXw$ for
list info
Whatever its faults, Google Scholar gives very focused information to scholarly articles about elections and voting when compared with the "general" Google search engine.
For me the problem with the use of the name RCV, ranked choice voting, is that it suggests that a ballot which allows the voter to "rank" choices is used but offers no clue about what decision procedure is used to get a "winner" based on the ballots. To model voting one needs to specify a ballot type and specify a "decision" method. Work of Arrow and other scholars chart what desirable and undesirable features different systems obey.
Regards,
Joe
From: Closed Limelike Curves closed.limelike.curves@gmail.com
Sent: Sunday, October 20, 2024 2:54 PM
To: Joseph Malkevitch jmalkevitch@york.cuny.edu
Cc: EM election-methods@lists.electorama.com
Subject: Re: [EM] "Instant-runoff voting" article renamed to "Ranked-choice voting" on English Wikipedia
This email originated from closed.limelike.curves@gmail.com, a sender outside of CUNY. Never send login credentials, financial information, or sensitive information by email. Report suspicious email to reportspam@york.cuny.edu
Google page counts are often off by orders of magnitude, unfortunately.
But I'm also not saying no academics use the term IRV, just that, in recent years, "RCV" is definitely dominant.
On Fri, Oct 18, 2024 at 2:13 PM Joseph Malkevitch <jmalkevitch@york.cuny.edumailto:jmalkevitch@york.cuny.edu> wrote:
For amusement, a few minutes ago I entered the string
IRV voting
into
Google Scholar
And it claimed to find "about" 14500 citations.
Regards,
Joe
——————————————
Joseph Malkevitch
Email:
jmalkevitch@york.cuny.edumailto:jmalkevitch@york.cuny.edu
Web page:
http://york.cuny.edu/~malk/
From: Election-Methods <election-methods-bounces@lists.electorama.commailto:election-methods-bounces@lists.electorama.com> on behalf of Closed Limelike Curves <closed.limelike.curves@gmail.commailto:closed.limelike.curves@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, October 18, 2024 4:12 PM
To: Kristofer Munsterhjelm <km-elmet@munsterhjelm.nomailto:km-elmet@munsterhjelm.no>
Cc: Chris Benham <cbenhamau@yahoo.com.aumailto:cbenhamau@yahoo.com.au>; election-methods@lists.electorama.commailto:election-methods@lists.electorama.com <election-methods@lists.electorama.commailto:election-methods@lists.electorama.com>; Rob Lanphier <roblan@gmail.commailto:roblan@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [EM] "Instant-runoff voting" article renamed to "Ranked-choice voting" on English Wikipedia
- This email originates from a sender outside of CUNY. Verify the sender before replying or clicking on links and attachments. *
This email originated from election-methods-bounces@lists.electorama.commailto:election-methods-bounces@lists.electorama.com, a sender outside of CUNY. Never send login credentials, financial information, or sensitive information by email. Report suspicious email to reportspam@york.cuny.edumailto:reportspam@york.cuny.edu
But, in any case, my main comments on this are that Wikipedia policy is actually very clear on this issue.
- Wikipedia requires using the common name for a thing, even if it's a misnomer or less-than-ideal. For example, the articles are titled "morning sickness" and "Panama hat" instead of "Nausea and vomiting of pregnancy" or "That hat from Ecuador sometimes called a Panama hat". This helps both with search results and with ensuring neutrality in naming disputes: the San Francisco Board of Elections would argue "RCV" is accurate because voters do rank the candidates, but that "IRV" is inaccurate because the results aren't instantly available.
- Wikipedia requires following the lead of a majority of reliable sources. Overwhelmingly, reliable sources (e.g. media, academic papers, and so on) use and explicitly define RCV to mean IRV, not ranked voting methods in general.
On Fri, Oct 18, 2024 at 10:05 AM Closed Limelike Curves <closed.limelike.curves@gmail.commailto:closed.limelike.curves@gmail.com> wrote:
The Electowiki article covers this. The name IRV is a promotional name pushed by FairVote in the early 2000s. The name never really caught on and was never used by anyone but FairVote and Wikipedia, because the first place to adopt it (San Francisco) renamed it "Ranked-choice voting" because they thought the name IRV would confuse people into expecting the results to be released "instantly" (immediately after polls closed). The term IRV has never seen much widespread use outside voting theory circles and FairVote.
On Fri, Oct 18, 2024 at 9:09 AM Kristofer Munsterhjelm <km-elmet@munsterhjelm.nomailto:km-elmet@munsterhjelm.no> wrote:
On 2024-10-18 17:38, Chris Benham wrote:
I gather that "Instant Runoff Voting" was originally a promotional name
in the US that after being used for a long time was changed (for some
reason I forget) to Ranked Choice Voting.
From what I understand, one of the public-facing organizations (might
have been the LWV) suggested the name because, to the voter, the
characteristic feature is that you rank the candidates. And then
FairVote found out that it helped their advocacy, so it stuck.
-km
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/emhttps://urldefense.com/v3/__https://electorama.com/em__;!!NFZiyfBF5EK0!j2ylC81dWVCE0lVrjfjucxRVrgkdEgpwY9Z50svcLuLGoPE1GNGUXhEELgrdqLP0-b7Ws930PDhSw1YqswlgLpBxICmc3kxIXw$ for list info
Hi—I definitely agree with this! It's a very problematic misnomer. If I
could press a button that deleted the term "Ranked-choice voting" from
English and replaced it with "Instant-runoff voting", I 100% would.
However, the issue is that's not the choice we have available. When
Wikipedia chooses a title, the most important effect this has is on Google
and Wikipedia searches for that term. Usually, the top result for "XYZ" on
Google is the Wikipedia article titled "XYZ". That's not the case for
"Ranked-choice voting", because there isn't a Wikipedia article titled
"Ranked-choice voting". Instead, the top result is FairVote's website,
which defines RCV as a synonym for IRV in the first line, then provides
zero indication that other ranked voting systems exist.
To be clear—just because the title says "Ranked-choice voting" doesn't mean
we can't (or shouldn't) mostly use the term "Instant-runoff voting" in the
text (which I actually slightly prefer). The question is, do we want people
who google "RCV" to read a page written by FairVote? Or do we want them
reading a Wikipedia article that clearly explains how what FairVote and
most people call RCV is only one kind of ranked voting, and one that's
faced substantial criticism from experts for its properties?
On Mon, Oct 21, 2024 at 7:19 AM Joseph Malkevitch jmalkevitch@york.cuny.edu
wrote:
Whatever its faults, Google Scholar gives very focused information to
scholarly articles about elections and voting when compared with the
"general" Google search engine.
For me the problem with the use of the name RCV, ranked choice voting, is
that it suggests that a ballot which allows the voter to "rank" choices is
used but offers no clue about what decision procedure is used to get a
"winner" based on the ballots. To model voting one needs to specify a
ballot type and specify a "decision" method. Work of Arrow and other
scholars chart what desirable and undesirable features different systems
obey.
Regards,
Joe
From: Closed Limelike Curves closed.limelike.curves@gmail.com
Sent: Sunday, October 20, 2024 2:54 PM
To: Joseph Malkevitch jmalkevitch@york.cuny.edu
Cc: EM election-methods@lists.electorama.com
Subject: Re: [EM] "Instant-runoff voting" article renamed to
"Ranked-choice voting" on English Wikipedia
This email originated from closed.limelike.curves@gmail.com, a sender
outside of CUNY. Never send login credentials, financial information, or
sensitive information by email. Report suspicious email to
reportspam@york.cuny.edu
Google page counts are often off by orders of magnitude, unfortunately.
But I'm also not saying no academics use the term IRV, just that, in
recent years, "RCV" is definitely dominant.
On Fri, Oct 18, 2024 at 2:13 PM Joseph Malkevitch <
jmalkevitch@york.cuny.edu> wrote:
For amusement, a few minutes ago I entered the string
IRV voting
into
Google Scholar
And it claimed to find "about" 14500 citations.
Regards,
Joe
——————————————
Joseph Malkevitch
Email:
jmalkevitch@york.cuny.edu
Web page:
http://york.cuny.edu/~malk/
From: Election-Methods election-methods-bounces@lists.electorama.com
on behalf of Closed Limelike Curves closed.limelike.curves@gmail.com
Sent: Friday, October 18, 2024 4:12 PM
To: Kristofer Munsterhjelm km-elmet@munsterhjelm.no
Cc: Chris Benham cbenhamau@yahoo.com.au;
election-methods@lists.electorama.com <
election-methods@lists.electorama.com>; Rob Lanphier roblan@gmail.com
Subject: Re: [EM] "Instant-runoff voting" article renamed to
"Ranked-choice voting" on English Wikipedia
** This email originates from a sender outside of CUNY. Verify the sender
before replying or clicking on links and attachments. **
This email originated from election-methods-bounces@lists.electorama.com,
a sender outside of CUNY. Never send login credentials, financial
information, or sensitive information by email. Report suspicious email to
reportspam@york.cuny.edu
But, in any case, my main comments on this are that Wikipedia policy is
actually very clear on this issue.
- Wikipedia requires using the common name for a thing, even if it's a
misnomer or less-than-ideal. For example, the articles are titled "morning
sickness" and "Panama hat" instead of "Nausea and vomiting of pregnancy" or
"That hat from Ecuador sometimes called a Panama hat". This helps both with
search results and with ensuring neutrality in naming disputes: the San
Francisco Board of Elections would argue "RCV" is accurate because voters
do rank the candidates, but that "IRV" is inaccurate because the results
aren't instantly available. - Wikipedia requires following the lead of a majority of reliable
sources. Overwhelmingly, reliable sources (e.g. media, academic papers, and
so on) use and explicitly define RCV to mean IRV, not ranked voting methods
in general.
On Fri, Oct 18, 2024 at 10:05 AM Closed Limelike Curves <
closed.limelike.curves@gmail.com> wrote:
The Electowiki article covers this. The name IRV is a promotional name
pushed by FairVote in the early 2000s. The name never really caught on and
was never used by anyone but FairVote and Wikipedia, because the first
place to adopt it (San Francisco) renamed it "Ranked-choice voting" because
they thought the name IRV would confuse people into expecting the results
to be released "instantly" (immediately after polls closed). The term IRV
has never seen much widespread use outside voting theory circles and
FairVote.
On Fri, Oct 18, 2024 at 9:09 AM Kristofer Munsterhjelm <
km-elmet@munsterhjelm.no> wrote:
On 2024-10-18 17:38, Chris Benham wrote:
I gather that "Instant Runoff Voting" was originally a promotional name
in the US that after being used for a long time was changed (for some
reason I forget) to Ranked Choice Voting.
From what I understand, one of the public-facing organizations (might
have been the LWV) suggested the name because, to the voter, the
characteristic feature is that you rank the candidates. And then
FairVote found out that it helped their advocacy, so it stuck.
-km
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://electorama.com/em__;!!NFZiyfBF5EK0!j2ylC81dWVCE0lVrjfjucxRVrgkdEgpwY9Z50svcLuLGoPE1GNGUXhEELgrdqLP0-b7Ws930PDhSw1YqswlgLpBxICmc3kxIXw$ for
list info
On 2024-10-21 20:11, Closed Limelike Curves wrote:
Hi—I definitely agree with this! It's a very problematic misnomer. If I
could press a button that deleted the term "Ranked-choice voting" from
English and replaced it with "Instant-runoff voting", I 100% would.
However, the issue is that's not the choice we have available. When
Wikipedia chooses a title, the most important effect this has is on
Google and Wikipedia searches for that term. Usually, the top result for
"XYZ" on Google is the Wikipedia article titled "XYZ". That's not the
case for "Ranked-choice voting", because there isn't a Wikipedia article
titled "Ranked-choice voting". Instead, the top result is FairVote's
website, which defines RCV as a synonym for IRV in the first line, then
provides zero indication that other ranked voting systems exist.
It does seem that Google follows redirects, too. For instance, the WP
article for "Set covering" redirects to the "Set cover problem".
Searching Google for "set covering" gives the WP article on the "set
cover problem" as the first match.
So if the WP instant-runoff article is not the first match, it may not
simply be "because the WP RCV article is a redirect and Google doesn't
follow redirects". There may be some other reason.
(For what it's worth, my Google search for "ranked choice voting" gave
the Wikipedia article for "ranked voting", not the FairVote page, as its
first match.)
-km