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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   4466 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 16, 2024

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In 55% R districts where democrats select D as their top choice?

That shouldn't matter, even if you have e.g. 45% D, 30% R, 15% L, 10% C in first preferences, minor parties get eliminated first and their votes are added to the R tally.

The failure mode of IRV looks more like 45% D, 10% R, 25% L, 20% C where the Rs are the voters sufficiently disengaged and ignoring third parties to not put down a second choice or write D as a second choice.

In other words, if almost everyone selects different obscure third-parties they really want first and the realistic choice second, then IRV gets nonsense results because the realistic choice gets eliminated even though everyone expected their votes to get reallocated to them. In practice this isn't a real problem because no one proposing IRV seriously expects any meaningful votes outside of the two-party duopoly.

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