[EM] Help me find a plaintiff for a court to rule that IRV is better than the one-choice system

Kathy Dopp

2017-06-30 00:52:12 UTC

Sennet,

1. IRV is not a type of ballot. It is a counting method for "rank
choice ballots".

2. IRV is a much worse method of counting rank choice ballots than
almost any other due to:

a. IRV's fundamental unfairness. The 2nd choice votes of voters whose
1st choice loses is only counted for some voters, but not all voters.
(same goes for later choice). Only some voters have their choices
considered due to the IRV counting method, and thus;

b. IRV is nonmonotic: Adding more votes for a candidate sometimes
causes that candidate to lose, whereas, the same candidate may have
otherwise won;

c. The most supported of all candidates by all voters may be
eliminated prior to the 2nd choices being considered;

3. IRV is a one winner method of counting votes and IMO fails more
fairness criteria than plurality;

4. IRV cannot be counted in separate batches and summed, i.e., is not
precinct summable, so is virtually impossible to manually audit by
randomly selecting reported tallies to ensure the accuracy of the
count, so that the only solution to verifying the lack of malfeasance
or incompetence on the part of the programmers, maintenance, or
possible hackers is to manually recount,...

5. IMO, IRV is a threat to the fairness and accuracy of US elections.

That said, I have no doubt you'd be able to find someone gullible and
ignorant enough to be willing to be a plaintiff for such a purpose,
and judges generally don't understand the math or flaws of IRV (or the
danger of failure to manually audit election outcomes) either.

I support rank choice ballots when a fair counting method is used that
treats the ballots of all voters equally.

Kathy

Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2017 19:45:56 +0000 (UTC)
Subject: [EM] Help me find a plaintiff for a court to rule that IRV is better than the one-choice system
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Goal: ?When a court officially rules that IRV is better than single-choice one-winner IRV elections, it will make national news for election modernization.
(this subject has nothing to do with various proportional and weighted voted systems that are not legal for U.S. elections anyway)
Here is the opportunity: ?A few states (10?) have recently made it legal for overseas military personnel to use IRV ballots. ?It is obviously unconstitutional to give some voters better voting rights than everyone else. ?In those states, ANYONE now has a constitutional right to request an IRV ballot!
Now we only need a voter in any of those states to file a lawsuit demanding the right to use IRV. ?The court will logically rule that being allowed to use an IRV ballot is better and anyone the state must be allowed the same right, and that will be it. ? A court ruling that IRV ballots are superior will make it much easier to pass IRV modernization nationwide.
? Right now, the help I am looking is any "election-methods" activists who will try to help locate anyone in any of those states who will agree to be the plaintiff against unconstitutional voting rights discrimination. ? Personally, I don't offhand recall which states now allow overseas military to use IRV, and I'm not sure if I even know anyone in any of these states.Let me know if you want to try to help!_______________ ??in other news, ?do we all know that Maine voted for statewide IRV modernization in Nov.? ?Sadly, there were errors on the "question five" measure, so no telling if it will be implemented.
And I made a new online poll?new poll: best reason for IRV?posted here:?http://www.demochoice.org/dcballot.php?poll=123gmv?
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