User:RalphInOttawa/Standard Vote: Difference between revisions

This method modifies [[Instant-Runoff Voting|instant runoff voting]] (IRV) by adding a second and possibly a third runoff with [[later-no-harm]] safeguards for runoff winners. It further modifies simple IRV by allowing the voter to mark more than one candidate at the same ranking level. These additions claim to improve on simple IRV by: more fairly counting a voter's honest opinion, making this system more monotonic ([[Monotonicity]]), reducing the failure rate for the [[Independence of irrelevant alternatives|Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives]] (IIA), eliminating [[Center-squeeze]], and making the practice of [[Favorite Betrayal]] unnecessary.

Voters rank the candidates using as many ranking levels as there are candidates, or to a limit as specified by the electing authority. Four levels is manually countable and a reasonable compromise as few voters will remember, nor be happy with, whomever their fifth and additional down ballot choices were.

If no one has been elected, a pairwise comparison is made of the second and third winners. The second winner will be elected if the third winner can do no better than a tie. Failing all of the above, the third winner is compared pairwise with the first winner. The third winner will be elected if they beat the first winner. Finally, with no one elected, the result is a paradoxical tie between the three runoff winners. One of them will be elected by "random draw".

[[Random Voter Hierarchy]] (RVH) is used for each "random draw". Ideally these values are determined at the "instant" the counting begins, giving candidates and voters nothing to apply a strategy to. If two or more candidates have the same rank on any number of ballots, this tie is re-ranked by "random draw" en masse. All votes will fall the same way throughout all elimination rounds in all runoffs (all occurrences of A=B will either all count as A>B or all count as B>A). All ties encountered during elimination rounds will be decided by a different "random draw". This will cause ties between candidates to be decided in the same candidate's favor throughout all elimination rounds. In pairwise ties between runoff winners, the earlier winner's count takes precedence over a subsequent winner's count. In the scenario of the paradoxical tie, the candidate to be elected will be decided by yet another different "random draw".

The paradoxical tie. Each candidate has an equal claim to be elected. In this example, one of the three candidates will be elected by "random draw".