On May 5, voters of London elected a Mayor and a local assembly. Twelve parties entered the Mayoral race. London uses a modified form of instant runoff voting for its mayoral elections. See the wikipedia story about the election. The Labour Party nominee, Sadiq Khan, was elected. He did not have a majority of the first place votes, but the IRV process then counted second place votes and he won. He is the first Muslim to be elected Mayor of a large city in a Christian majority nation in Europe.
In order to receive repayment of the filing fee, a candidate had to poll at least 5% of the first choice votes. The only three parties to recover their filing fee were Labour, Conservative, and Green.
IRV is one more MORON fix for the rotted election systems.
IRV does NOT use ALL of the Number Votes data.
34 AMZ
33 ZMA
16 MAZ
16 MZA
99
With IRV, M loses. A 50 A beats Z 49
Head to Head (aka Condorcet) — 65 M beats 34 A, 66 M beats 33 Z
M has a mere 99 of 99 votes in 1st plus 2nd place.
STOP the IRV math MORONS at ALL costs.
The Los Angeles Times reported on the election of Mr Khan, noting that Mr Khan “won with 57% to Goldsmith’s 43%.” This shows the shortcoming of IRV – the first preference votes for alternative candidates are lost in the reporting, after they have been distributed to the top candidates.
Demo Rep… You’re the dumbass dude. You have a complete misunderstanding of the process of IRV. No wonder you knock it, you don’t even understand it. You really need to shut the fuck up already.
See in your little example here, in round one:
32 votes go to M
33 go to Z
and 34 go to A.
So in a plurality system, like we have right now. ‘A’ wins.
If we switched to IRV:
M didn’t win in round one, so M’s votes would be split between ‘A’ and ‘Z’ after they were transferred to their second choices… 16 for each. Guess what ‘A” still wins… but it gave the opportunity for people to vote for ‘M’ because of the wasted vote syndrome where they would of only voted for ‘Z’ and ‘A’ anyway.
Had ‘M’ won 34 votes in the first round, then they would have been the second option in the second round of calculations.
In your example here:
34 AMZ
33 ZMA
16 MAZ
16 MZA
99
In a single vote plurality race, the results would have been this:
34 A
33 Z
32 M
IRV gives people the opportunity to vote for a third-party without fear that their preferred lesser of two evils candidate would lose because they voted for a third-party.
Say the result were this instead:
33 AMZ
32 ZMA
17 MAZ
17 MZA
99
34 M
33 A
32 Z
Z’s votes then get transferred to ‘M’ and ‘A’… Thus:
50 M
49 A
P.S. Approval voting won’t solve a thing. If we go to approval voting everybody would simply vote for their preferred candidate and no one else, because they know other people are going to do the same thing; that’s called Game Theory. So with Approval voting, we essentially keep first-past-the-post plurality just under another guise.
Gene Berkman? Nobody currently uses IRV. California is top-two… an entirely different process.
Thus use something similar in the Australia Senate to IRV and they have 10 parties and 4 independents because of it. We have a two party system because of ideas like plurality voting and approval voting.
The UK Greens did pretty good overall in this election; they increased the number of officeholders from two to six in the Scottish Parliament, and gained another seat in the Northern Ireland elections.
Approval voting does not imply that only a plurality is required to win; approval voting is often used with the requirement that a majority is needed to win. Actual results with approval voting do not match what game theory is claimed to predict. BTW, game theory can predict any result depending on how the payoffs of the game are set.
Condorcet suffers the serious disadvantage of sometimes yielding circularly ambiguous results e.g. A is preferred to B, B is preferred to C, and C is preferred to A.
AMcCarrick – Here in Maine’s gubernatorial election in the last two cycles I had ABC to choose from in the first election, and ABE to choose from in the second election. With IRV I would have voted for CB (and not A) in the first, and EB (and not A) in the second.
Gene Berkman – just because a (US) newspaper doesn’t report the full results does NOT mean there is a short coming in the system. It’s a short coming in reporting!
On Saturday morning (UK time) when the results were announced the Returning officer announced ALL the first preference votes before announcing the result of the second round.
The first preferences are listed in the wiki article as well as well as on the London Elects website plus on numerous other newspapers and TV station websites.
AMcCarrick,
The game theory of voting methods is unfortunately quite counterintuitive. Tactical voting is typically thought of as voting for someone who is NOT your favorite, e.g. a Green Party supporter who insincerely votes for the Democrat. With Approval Voting, that voter might as well also vote for the Green. It is absolutely not correct that the best strategy is to bullet vote for your favorite candidate.
Approval Voting behaves extremely well in the presence of tactical behavior. Since you mention game theory, here’s a Princeton math PhD explaining a theorem that Approval Voting will elect a Condorcet winner, given plausible models of voter strategy.
http://scorevoting.net/AppCW.html
IRV (and most ranked voting methods) on the other hand, can hurt you for ranking your sincere favorite candidate in first place. The general strategy for that Green supporter is to rank the Democrat in first place, lest she get the Republican. Hence systems like IRV degrade toward Plurality Voting, given enough strategic behavior.
https://sites.google.com/a/electology.org/www/irv-plurality
1. Condorcet in France in the 1780s (repeat 1780s) noted that an added third choice could beat 2 existing choices head to head.
A > B, C comes along — possible that C > A, and C > B.
2. The complete Number Votes Table in the original example at the top —
1 — 2 — 3
A 34 — 16 — 49
M 32 — 67 — 0
Z 33 — 16 — 50
99 — 99 — 99
Z is a Condorcet Loser (also by having a majority in LAST place).
65 M beats 34 A
I.E. The Head to Head math will lead to *moderate* / Median choices.
3. Two tiebreakers for any circular tie — A > B > C > A —
A. YES/NO Approval Voting
B. Adding the place votes – and redo the head to head math, if necessary.
A modified example —
34 DEF
33 EFD
32 FDE
D > E, E > F, F > D
Adding 1st and 2nd place — NOTE – each voter MUST rank all choices.
D 66, E 67, F 65 (Loses)
66 D beats 33 E.
4. i.e. there should be BOTH YES/NO [absolute] (default) and Number Votes ( 1, 2, 3, etc.) (relative) for candidate elections and even issue elections (having alternatives).
For POWER offices — Prez, State Guvs — a YES majority might be required.
If NO YES majority winner – then have the P.R. legislative body fill the office.
Again – the simple minded IRV fanatic math MORONS are doing the WRONG math – and will be setting back REAL election reform for a zillion years if some NUTCASE extremist gets elected to a major office via IRV — esp. if such NUTCASE loses Head to Head with another choice.
London uses the supplementary vote, where a voter is limited to two votes. If a voter does not vote for either of the Top 2, then their second vote is used – if it is for one of the Top 2.
Less than half the votes transferred. Most voters for 3rd Party candidates did so because they didn’t like either major party. To be able to have an effective 2nd vote, you would have to handicap the election, or cynically think, I know my true choice has no chance, so who will I vote for who will be running.
A conventional runoff would be better. Voters would come back in a couple of weeks, after they have a chance to really consider which candidate they preferred, and perhaps consider endorsements by other candidates.
Jim I can tell you there is no appetite for run off elections here in the UK like there is in other countries (France for example)
Turnout is low enough here already with out expecting people to vote again in two weeks time. Let alone issues with issuing Postal Votes and getting them back in time – here they have to be received back at 10PM on polling day for them to be counted.
In London each elector is sent a centrally produced booklet with candidate statements (prepared by the candidates themselves) so people should go to the polls fully briefed on the candidates.
There also isn’t a culture of endorsements (either by celebrities or politicians) here like there is in the US and few people will care or pay attention to a candidate suggesting their supporters vote for one of either of the final two candidates.
The supplementary vote is also used for other Mayoral elections here as well as Police and Crime Commissioners where in Sussex (where I live) turn out reached the dizzy heights of 22.5%. There is no chance that turnout would be that high if we had to vote again in a fortnight!
The math problem is the Divided Majority Case —
26 AB
25 BA
49 Z
100
Both A and B defeat Z head to head.
i.e. the Z voters MUST be required to vote for the lesser of the A and B evils.
Again Majority YES Approval can be required – for executive/judicial offices especially.
The general ROT in the USA election systems —
A. plurality/often minority winner nominations.
B. plurality winner elections — esp. in totally rigged pack/crack gerrymander districts.
C. ANTI-Democracy math in gerrymander systems —
1/2 or less votes x 1/2 of such rigged gerrymander districts = 1/4 or less CONTROL indirectly —
i.e. nonstop OLIGARCHS making most of the laws in the U.S.A. —
for the benefit of the various special interest GANGSTERS.
D. nonstop trend towards lunatic powermad MONARCHS (due to the above) — USA Prezs, State Guvs, Mayors, etc. — THINK 2016 Prez — lunatic Hillary versus lunatic Donald —
after the accumulated Prez monarch machinations since 1933.
Democracy is almost DEAD in the U.S.A.
— i.e. Left/Right Oligarchy gangs about to start Civil WAR II.
—-
Thus — P.R. and NONPARTISAN App.V. — before it is too late.
@ChrisinEngland:
Only 39% of votes transferred. Either voters were tricked into not casting an effective vote, or they were truly indifferent to a choice between Goldsmith and Khan. Indubitably it was a combination of both.
Weren’t runoff elections part of the Conservative manifesto?
The party vote for London members of the Assembly for the Greens, Liberal Democrats, and UKIP were 38%, 38%, and 81% higher, respectively, than the vote for the mayoral candidate of those parties. The mayoral candidate of all three parties was elected as a London member of the Assembly.
Supporters of the Green, Liberal Democrats, and UKIP may well have considered the endorsements of those party, or their mayoral candidate. But those candidates would be unlikely to make an endorsement prior to the first round. “We can win!!!” (exuberant with cheers from supporters at the rally), “but to be honest, we have no chance, so be sure to vote for Khan/Goldsmith with your 2nd vote”. It is simply too confusing message.
Under a runoff system, during the first round the candidate can say “We, can win!!!), and then in the second round, “We did our best and 100s of thousands of Londoners supported our message!!! As a member of the Assembly I will continue to push for . But it is also important that we vote for Khan/Goldsmith in the runoff in two weeks. While we don’t agree with him 100%, we agree with substantially more than Goldsmith/Khan.”