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> there's no clear winner because people's preferences point around in a circle. Is there evidence around how often such cycles actually occur in practice? See

> there's no clear winner because people's preferences point around in a circle. Is there evidence around how often such cycles actually occur in practice? Seems like a convoluted example, intuitively speaking.

pizza 7y ago
For groups of individuals, it is quite possible https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_paradox
- theptip 7y ago
  It's obvious that these cycles can exist when the things referred to have labels like "A, B, C" or "carrot, potato, lettuce", but how often do they occur for political candidates like the ones described above? I'm willing to buy that IRV is objectively not suitable for picking meals, but that in practice it is suitable for picking presidential candidates -- or that it's always inferior. Seems like an empirical question, not a theoretical one.
  - ikiris 7y ago
    Thankfully lots of smart people have written papers about how that's incorrect. They just use generic terms like "A,B,C"
  - amalcon 7y ago
    The wikipedia page includes a cite of such an empirical analysis: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_paradox#Empirical_studies https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_paradox#Empirical_...
    - theptip 7y ago
      Thanks! I'm just going to quote here because the footnote was interesting: > A summary of 37 individual studies, covering a total of 265 real-world elections, large and small, found 25 instances of a Condorcet paradox, for a total likelihood of 9.4%[14]:325 (and this may be a high estimate, since cases of the paradox are more likely to be reported on than cases without).[13]:47 > 13: ""most election results do not correspond to anything like any of DC, IC, IAC or MC ... empirical studies ... indicate that some of the most common paradoxes are relatively unlikely to be observed in actual elections. ... it is easily concluded that Condorcet’s Paradox should very rarely be observed in any real elections on a small number of candidates with large electorates, as long as voters’ preferences reflect any reasonable degree of group mutual coherence" I think I have to file this one under "it's complicated, must dig more".
jefftk 7y ago
When voters are all arranged on a single primary axis it doesn't happen, but when voters care about multiple axes at once (ex: socially liberal / conservative + economically liberal / conservative) it's relatively common. One well-known and widely discussed case is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Burlington_mayoral_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Burlington_mayoral_electi...
- munk-a 7y ago
  This particular case was brought up previously, but as a participant I'd like to mention that this election actually went quite well, the candidate with the second most primary round votes ended up winning. I believe it's often cited and discussed because the election was repealed and the candidate thrown out of office, which was hugely frustrating... the voting system was scrapped because the electorate selected a bad candidate. Let me draw a parallel, let's say that Trump is impeached - when he's impeached should we all say "Oh hey, well that democracy thing... what a dumpster fire - let's go back to a monarchy!". No, we shouldn't, but high amounts of pressure from the dominant parties were deployed and caused a voting system to be repealed just because someone elected by it was removed from office. Seriously, the BTV election is a terrible case example, it was intensely tainted by lobbied interests and used as an excuse to regress voting rights.
  - tialaramex 7y ago
    A (Constitutional) Monarchy is better _because_ it has no legitimacy. The purpose of the Monarch is not to Rule but only to provide a Figurehead, a living Symbol of their country. That's what Liz is for and she's really good at it. If the US had an elected Figurehead president, Trump would have been a perfectly functional drop-in. Likes gaudy things, talks bullshit, eats too much fast food - symbol of America, works for me. The problem is that the US combines the Figurehead role with Executive leadership. That's crazy, there aren't going to be many suitable candidates for either role, and now you're asking the electorate to vote for a single individual to do both, no surprises the results aren't good.

pizza 7y ago

For groups of individuals, it is quite possible https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_paradox

theptip 7y ago
It's obvious that these cycles can exist when the things referred to have labels like "A, B, C" or "carrot, potato, lettuce", but how often do they occur for political candidates like the ones described above? I'm willing to buy that IRV is objectively not suitable for picking meals, but that in practice it is suitable for picking presidential candidates -- or that it's always inferior. Seems like an empirical question, not a theoretical one.
- ikiris 7y ago
  Thankfully lots of smart people have written papers about how that's incorrect. They just use generic terms like "A,B,C"
- amalcon 7y ago
  The wikipedia page includes a cite of such an empirical analysis: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_paradox#Empirical_studies https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_paradox#Empirical_...
  - theptip 7y ago
    Thanks! I'm just going to quote here because the footnote was interesting: > A summary of 37 individual studies, covering a total of 265 real-world elections, large and small, found 25 instances of a Condorcet paradox, for a total likelihood of 9.4%[14]:325 (and this may be a high estimate, since cases of the paradox are more likely to be reported on than cases without).[13]:47 > 13: ""most election results do not correspond to anything like any of DC, IC, IAC or MC ... empirical studies ... indicate that some of the most common paradoxes are relatively unlikely to be observed in actual elections. ... it is easily concluded that Condorcet’s Paradox should very rarely be observed in any real elections on a small number of candidates with large electorates, as long as voters’ preferences reflect any reasonable degree of group mutual coherence" I think I have to file this one under "it's complicated, must dig more".

jefftk 7y ago

When voters are all arranged on a single primary axis it doesn't happen, but when voters care about multiple axes at once (ex: socially liberal / conservative + economically liberal / conservative) it's relatively common. One well-known and widely discussed case is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Burlington_mayoral_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Burlington_mayoral_electi...

munk-a 7y ago
This particular case was brought up previously, but as a participant I'd like to mention that this election actually went quite well, the candidate with the second most primary round votes ended up winning. I believe it's often cited and discussed because the election was repealed and the candidate thrown out of office, which was hugely frustrating... the voting system was scrapped because the electorate selected a bad candidate. Let me draw a parallel, let's say that Trump is impeached - when he's impeached should we all say "Oh hey, well that democracy thing... what a dumpster fire - let's go back to a monarchy!". No, we shouldn't, but high amounts of pressure from the dominant parties were deployed and caused a voting system to be repealed just because someone elected by it was removed from office. Seriously, the BTV election is a terrible case example, it was intensely tainted by lobbied interests and used as an excuse to regress voting rights.
- tialaramex 7y ago
  A (Constitutional) Monarchy is better _because_ it has no legitimacy. The purpose of the Monarch is not to Rule but only to provide a Figurehead, a living Symbol of their country. That's what Liz is for and she's really good at it. If the US had an elected Figurehead president, Trump would have been a perfectly functional drop-in. Likes gaudy things, talks bullshit, eats too much fast food - symbol of America, works for me. The problem is that the US combines the Figurehead role with Executive leadership. That's crazy, there aren't going to be many suitable candidates for either role, and now you're asking the electorate to vote for a single individual to do both, no surprises the results aren't good.