Utilitarianism, ctd.

by Paul Fidalgo // Published August 18, 2009
A couple posts ago, I showed you an example of IRV's raw practicality, as it eliminated the need for a needlessly redundant, low-turnout runoff election in which the outcome was for all intents and purposes foreknown. Kelly Haughton in the News Tribune gives another fine example of IRV's pragmatic appeal: Big bucks saved in tiny races (here it's known as ranked choice voting, or RCV, as they call it in Washington State).
Today I will sit down with my ballot for the Tuesday primary. It has a single race on it, for Port of Tacoma commissioner.

The only function of my vote is to eliminate one of the three candidates so that voters will have only two candidates on their ballots in November.

More than 130,000 voters around the county are in the same position. Most of them are likely to decide this is not worth the effort or the stamp. . . .

. . . What would happen if the port commissioners were elected with RCV? There would have been no August primary for the port. No ballots would have been sent to those 130,000 voters. The Elections Department would have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars being spent on printing and mailing. It would not have to open polls for these precincts.

Who will pay for this additional expense? The Port of Tacoma will receive a bill for more than $300,000 to eliminate just one candidate.

That's right, for a small election, 300 G's would be saved if RCV were being used. That is not chump change, particularly in economic times like these. As the battle to keep RCV in Pierce County heats up, it's a good thing to keep in mind.

Comments currently closed for Utilitarianism, ctd.

  • Paul, I know that one of the products that FairVote sells is IRV. But it seems to me that the mission of the organization is to, in a non-partisan manner, promote the ideals of democracy in forming government that is sensitive and responsive to the electorate, including significant minorities. This is, I believe, the motivation behind Choice Voting and proportional representation (using Single Transferable Vote) for multi-winner elections, say for city councils and other legislative bodies. I share the very same goals however, I believe that FairVote would do well to reconsider the application of the STV method to single-winner elections (with more than 2 viable candidates) when there is a more optimal and direct method to measure the popular sentiment. It is pretty clear that a ranked-order ballot is necessary in any multi-candidate race to collect sufficient information from voters and that STV and proportional representation is the fairest way to decide multi-winner elections so that *some* candidates with a strong minority base succeed in gaining office (in an appropriate minority proportion) rather than the dominant party gaining all of the seats, but this does not mean that exactly the same mechanism works as well for single-winner elections. I am concerned that there is as much "group think" going on here as you would find with the off-the-wall movements like the "birthers" or the religious right. Writers for FairVote continue to repeat falsehoods (that are objectively false) that IRV *ensures* that the candidate with the majority support wins, that IRV *eliminates* the spoiler problem, and even that IRV removes the motivation for voters to "vote tactically". 1. IRV *aids* in preventing the election of least popular candidate running against a split majority, but it does not necessarily elect the candidate who has the clear majority support as determined from the collection of ranked-order ballots. 2. IRV *mitigates* against the spoiler problem but does not eliminate it. 3. IRV is less likely to punish a group of voters for voting their sincere choice rather than voting tactically, but does not always avoid doing that. This last spring, in Burlington Vermont, IRV *failed* to accomplish all three of those purposes. That is an objective fact supported by the public record. In the 2009 mayoral race in Burlington, IRV elected the candidate in which the majority of voters preferred over all other candidates *except* one. IRV elected to office, the candidate with the second highest popular support and where the majority of voters had marked their ballots that they preferred a different *specific* candidate. The voting majority said "We like Candidate A more than Candidate B", yet Candidate B was elected. In the 2009 mayoral race, IRV failed to protect the election from the spoiler effect. As a matter of fact, the presence of a candidate who ultimately lost the election (under IRV rules) actually changed who the winner was. If the candidate who lost to the winner in the IRV final round (who happened to have the plurality of first-choice votes) had not been there, and if the same 9000 voters had expressed their same preferences regarding the remaining candidates, a different candidate would have won than who had. It also turns out that very few voters for the plurality winner had shown *any* approving preference for the candidate who *did* win the IRV, but a significant number had shown approval (in the form of second-choice) for the majority-winning candidate who was shown to be preferred over either the IRV winner or the plurality winner when compared to either. Consequently, the supporters of the plurality winner are wondering with good reason if they had forsaken their first choice and supported their second choice, they could have prevented their least favorite candidate from winning. That means IRV even failed to discourage tactical voting. In fact, these voters who supported the plurality candidate and *many* voters who supported the majority-preferred candidate are scratching their heads and wondering how this failure to reflect the majority will of the electorate happened in Burlington in 2009. Only the supporters of the IRV winner, which are objectively a minority, are quite pleased with the election result. As a result, a successful petition drive is placing the IRV election method on the next ballot for repeal and this referendum may very well succeed, which means that IRV and Choice Voting will be defeated in Burlington and Vermont. What does it take to get the "group think" at FairVote to seriously examine what happened in Burlington in 2009, to not ignore it and flippantly call this failure a "success" and to seriously consider other methods of Choice Voting that even more directly reflects the popular sentiment that IRV? Can you guys do that? Do you have the intellectual curiousity, the forensic objectivity and introspection to engage in such a inquiry and public discourse about the value of IRV in relation to other methods than just the traditional first-past-the-pole (which most of us here agree is inferior in a multi-candidate, single-winner race)? Can you guys handle that? Is your confidence in yourselves and your position on issues strong enough that you can engage in examining it in juxtaposition to other methods and supporting it (and others) with facts and with the non-partisan democratic principles I think we all proclaim? Please talk to Rob and Bob R and Terry B about it, because it's very hard to see any visual blinders on oneself because of those very obstructions to vision. I am vulnerable to the same risk. But I have no facility for an echo-chamber or group think, except in my own head (which, of course, is its own problem).

    Posted by Robert Bristow-Johnson, 2009-08-21 00:49:31 (4 years ago)