Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) is the name commonly used in the United States for Preferential Voting. There are campaigns for IRV in a number of states and local jurisdictions in the U.S. which have been largely promoted and supported, in recent years, by a non-profit educational and advocacy organization called FairVote.
Opposition to this campaign can be classified into two broad categories:
#Those who prefer to maintain the status quo, which is generally Plurality voting, or two-round runoff elections.
#Those who prefer reforms other than Instant Runoff Voting.
The arguments of these two groups are different, and sometimes the same argument is used on both sides; for example, some IRV advocates claim that IRV will help third parties to gain a toehold and, if they can eventually muster majority support, to win elections. This argument has been summarized as "IRV will allow third parties to grow without being spoilers." In seeming agreement with this, some opponents of IRV argue that IRV will indeed damage the two-party system, which these critics consider important to American democracy.
On the other hand, critics of IRV who prefer other reformed methods have claimed that IRV will help preserve the two-party system, pointing to the countries that use single-winner STV, which have long maintained strong two-party systems with little exception. Further, some support for IRV comes from major-party supporters who want to eliminate the spoiler effect caused by vote-splitting, as with the Ralph Nader vote in Florida in the 2000 U.S. Presidential election, which presumably came largely from voters who would prefer Al Gore over George W. Bush, and which vote was more than enough to turn that election. These supporters of IRV expect that it will help maintain the two-party system by preventing spoiled elections.
Controversies over Instant Runoff Voting can be broken down into a series of specific issues. These may be defined by arguments being made, Pro or Con;
Arguments in FAVOR of IRV and the debate over them
Pro: IRV will end the spoiler effect
Where a third party candidate draws sufficient votes away from what would otherwise be a majority winner, causing a candidate to win with only minority support.
There is no controversy over the fact that IRV can reduce the spoiler effect. Historically, it has done so, as in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where IRV was implemented by referendum and which then resulted in the election of the first African-American mayor of a major city in the United States, in . Prior to this, the mayor of Ann Arbor had been Republican, due to vote splitting between the Democratic Party and the Human Rights Party. A new referendum to rescind the reform was then placed on the ballot for a special election, with low turnout, which reversed the reform.
However, critics of IRV point out that there are other reforms which could also reduce the spoiler effect, including Condorcet method, Borda Count and Approval Voting. Approval Voting, which is implemented by dropping the practice of discarding overvotes and allowing voters to select more than one candidate for a single seat, is the simplest and, unlike the other reforms, has little or no implementation cost.
Pro: IRV will reduce negative campaigning
This argument is commonly advanced based on a theory that candidates will want to seek second-rank votes from supporters of other candidates, hence they would presumably be less likely to attack such candidates. However, critics allege there is a lack of evidence that such an effect actually occurs, and, indeed, claim there is evidence that it does not. No formal studies are known to have been conducted. In any event, any reduction in negative campaigning would likely only be between those candidates nearest to each other politically. Candidates who were far apart politically would have little incentive to refrain from attacking each other, as they would be unlikely to win second preferences from voters at the other end of a political spectrum.
Pro: IRV will encourage sincere voting
Certainly IRV does make it easier to vote sincerely under most conditions, particularly where there is a strong two-party system. Critics of IRV point out, however, that when there is a strong third party candidate, situations can arise where there is an incentive for some voters to reverse preferences, and some claim that this actually happens; studying whether or not this is true, however, is difficult because IRV elections depend on individual ballot data. Complete ballot by ballot ranking data was made public following San Francisco, CA and Bulrington, VT IRV elections, which may allow for further analysis on this point.
Pro: IRV allows one ballot to determine a majority winner
Again, there is no controversy over the fact that IRV can do this; however, critics point out that, in actual practice, it can fail, and the IRV winner has been given an explicit vote by less than a majority of voters, due to the fact that some voters may not indicate any preference between the finlists (exhausted ballots). In order to avoid this problem, some jurisdictions using IRV have required that voters rank all candidates, which, by definition, creates a majority winner, because ballots not ranking all candidates are eliminated, but this has not been proposed for the United States. Further, some IRV implementations don't allow complete ranking, either due to voting machine limitations or other reasons; for example, in San Francisco, only three ranks are available on the ballot. When an election has more than three candidates, it can happen that ballots are exhausted, even when voters have used all three ranks, and the result has, indeed, been winners with less than 50% of the original vote . In an actual runoff, that winner would have faced the runner-up, forcing a majority choice. However, typically in separate runoff elections there is a significant drop-off in voter turnout. It is common in separate runoff elections for the "majority" winner to receive fewer votes than the loser received in the first round of voting.
Arguments AGAINST IRV and the debate over them
Opposition to instant-runoff voting consists of those who favor plurality, range voting, and other systems over the preferential voting system. The organized opposition to IRV has sometimes taken the form of newspaper editorials opposing local and state IRV initiatives.
Con: IRV violates the one person one vote mandate
Since some voters have their ballot counted for their first choice, while other voters have their ballot counted for a later choice, some argue that it violates the one-person one-vote mandate of the U.S. constitution. IRV was challenged in court on these grounds in a Michigan case, Stephenson vs. the Ann Arbor Board of City Canvassers in 1975. In that case, IRV (called Majority Preferential Voting or M.P.V.) was upheld as in compliance with this constitutional standard. In his decision Judge James Fleming wrote that
:"Under the 'M.P.V. System', however, no one person or voter has more than one effective vote for one office. No voter's vote can be counted more than once for the same candidate. In the final analysis, no voter is given greater weight in his or her vote over the vote of another voter, although to understand this does require a conceptual understanding of how the effect of a 'M.P.V. System' is like that of a run-off election. The form of majority preferential voting employed in the City of Ann Arbor's election of its Mayor does not violate the one-man, one-vote mandate nor does it deprive anyone of equal protection rights under the Michigan or United States Constitutions." http://www.fairvote.org/?page=397
On the other hand, in Minnesota, there is the precedent of Brown v. Smallwood, a case which addressed the constitutionality under Minnesota law of Bucklin Voting. Bucklin also involves, like IRV, alternative votes, coming from lower ranks, but it amalgamates them in a different manner, bringing them in as additional votes instead of through substitution, thus being similar in this respect to Approval Voting. Focusing on an alleged one-person, one-vote violation in this, advocates of IRV have claimed that Brown v. Smallwood will not apply, in any challenge, to IRV. However, the majority argued in Brown v. Smallwood, most strongly, against the principle of any kind of alternative vote, so some legal advisors have given the opinion that Brown v. Smallwood does indeed apply to other alternative voting systems. There was a dissent in Brown v. Smallwood which specifically attempted to refute the one-person, one-vote argument, and there is evidence in the record of this case that predominant legal opinion of the time, as well as other precedent in U.S. law, was reversed by the court, and the judgment in Brown v. Smallwood was not replicated elsewhere.
Con: "If it ain't broke don't fix it" or "Plurality Voting is Good Enough"
Some point to the fact that most elections in the U.S. use plurality voting, and voters seem to accept plurality winners as legitimate. The fact that some revered leaders, such as Abraham Lincoln did not receive a majority of the vote is sometimes mentioned. Others argue that a voting method that allows a candidate to win who is the LEAST favorite choice of a majority of voters (as is the case with plurality voting) is a disaster waiting to happen, and that majority rule should be a bedrock of our democracy. Plurality voting also increases the likelihood of "spoiler" scenarios, with all that that entails. Critics of IRV allege that these problems can be solved more reliably or more efficiently with other reformed methods.
IRV, it is argued:
* takes more effort for voters compared to Plurality voting or some other systems;
* doesn't give voters a second chance to re-evaluate candidates as with an actual runoff;
* doesn't guarantee a true majority-supported winner;
* is more expensive to count than Plurality voting or Approval Voting, requiring changes to vote counting procedures or voting equipment.
* has more Bayesian regret than range voting.
Opposition to this campaign can be classified into two broad categories:
#Those who prefer to maintain the status quo, which is generally Plurality voting, or two-round runoff elections.
#Those who prefer reforms other than Instant Runoff Voting.
The arguments of these two groups are different, and sometimes the same argument is used on both sides; for example, some IRV advocates claim that IRV will help third parties to gain a toehold and, if they can eventually muster majority support, to win elections. This argument has been summarized as "IRV will allow third parties to grow without being spoilers." In seeming agreement with this, some opponents of IRV argue that IRV will indeed damage the two-party system, which these critics consider important to American democracy.
On the other hand, critics of IRV who prefer other reformed methods have claimed that IRV will help preserve the two-party system, pointing to the countries that use single-winner STV, which have long maintained strong two-party systems with little exception. Further, some support for IRV comes from major-party supporters who want to eliminate the spoiler effect caused by vote-splitting, as with the Ralph Nader vote in Florida in the 2000 U.S. Presidential election, which presumably came largely from voters who would prefer Al Gore over George W. Bush, and which vote was more than enough to turn that election. These supporters of IRV expect that it will help maintain the two-party system by preventing spoiled elections.
Controversies over Instant Runoff Voting can be broken down into a series of specific issues. These may be defined by arguments being made, Pro or Con;
Arguments in FAVOR of IRV and the debate over them
Pro: IRV will end the spoiler effect
Where a third party candidate draws sufficient votes away from what would otherwise be a majority winner, causing a candidate to win with only minority support.
There is no controversy over the fact that IRV can reduce the spoiler effect. Historically, it has done so, as in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where IRV was implemented by referendum and which then resulted in the election of the first African-American mayor of a major city in the United States, in . Prior to this, the mayor of Ann Arbor had been Republican, due to vote splitting between the Democratic Party and the Human Rights Party. A new referendum to rescind the reform was then placed on the ballot for a special election, with low turnout, which reversed the reform.
However, critics of IRV point out that there are other reforms which could also reduce the spoiler effect, including Condorcet method, Borda Count and Approval Voting. Approval Voting, which is implemented by dropping the practice of discarding overvotes and allowing voters to select more than one candidate for a single seat, is the simplest and, unlike the other reforms, has little or no implementation cost.
Pro: IRV will reduce negative campaigning
This argument is commonly advanced based on a theory that candidates will want to seek second-rank votes from supporters of other candidates, hence they would presumably be less likely to attack such candidates. However, critics allege there is a lack of evidence that such an effect actually occurs, and, indeed, claim there is evidence that it does not. No formal studies are known to have been conducted. In any event, any reduction in negative campaigning would likely only be between those candidates nearest to each other politically. Candidates who were far apart politically would have little incentive to refrain from attacking each other, as they would be unlikely to win second preferences from voters at the other end of a political spectrum.
Pro: IRV will encourage sincere voting
Certainly IRV does make it easier to vote sincerely under most conditions, particularly where there is a strong two-party system. Critics of IRV point out, however, that when there is a strong third party candidate, situations can arise where there is an incentive for some voters to reverse preferences, and some claim that this actually happens; studying whether or not this is true, however, is difficult because IRV elections depend on individual ballot data. Complete ballot by ballot ranking data was made public following San Francisco, CA and Bulrington, VT IRV elections, which may allow for further analysis on this point.
Pro: IRV allows one ballot to determine a majority winner
Again, there is no controversy over the fact that IRV can do this; however, critics point out that, in actual practice, it can fail, and the IRV winner has been given an explicit vote by less than a majority of voters, due to the fact that some voters may not indicate any preference between the finlists (exhausted ballots). In order to avoid this problem, some jurisdictions using IRV have required that voters rank all candidates, which, by definition, creates a majority winner, because ballots not ranking all candidates are eliminated, but this has not been proposed for the United States. Further, some IRV implementations don't allow complete ranking, either due to voting machine limitations or other reasons; for example, in San Francisco, only three ranks are available on the ballot. When an election has more than three candidates, it can happen that ballots are exhausted, even when voters have used all three ranks, and the result has, indeed, been winners with less than 50% of the original vote . In an actual runoff, that winner would have faced the runner-up, forcing a majority choice. However, typically in separate runoff elections there is a significant drop-off in voter turnout. It is common in separate runoff elections for the "majority" winner to receive fewer votes than the loser received in the first round of voting.
Arguments AGAINST IRV and the debate over them
Opposition to instant-runoff voting consists of those who favor plurality, range voting, and other systems over the preferential voting system. The organized opposition to IRV has sometimes taken the form of newspaper editorials opposing local and state IRV initiatives.
Con: IRV violates the one person one vote mandate
Since some voters have their ballot counted for their first choice, while other voters have their ballot counted for a later choice, some argue that it violates the one-person one-vote mandate of the U.S. constitution. IRV was challenged in court on these grounds in a Michigan case, Stephenson vs. the Ann Arbor Board of City Canvassers in 1975. In that case, IRV (called Majority Preferential Voting or M.P.V.) was upheld as in compliance with this constitutional standard. In his decision Judge James Fleming wrote that
:"Under the 'M.P.V. System', however, no one person or voter has more than one effective vote for one office. No voter's vote can be counted more than once for the same candidate. In the final analysis, no voter is given greater weight in his or her vote over the vote of another voter, although to understand this does require a conceptual understanding of how the effect of a 'M.P.V. System' is like that of a run-off election. The form of majority preferential voting employed in the City of Ann Arbor's election of its Mayor does not violate the one-man, one-vote mandate nor does it deprive anyone of equal protection rights under the Michigan or United States Constitutions." http://www.fairvote.org/?page=397
On the other hand, in Minnesota, there is the precedent of Brown v. Smallwood, a case which addressed the constitutionality under Minnesota law of Bucklin Voting. Bucklin also involves, like IRV, alternative votes, coming from lower ranks, but it amalgamates them in a different manner, bringing them in as additional votes instead of through substitution, thus being similar in this respect to Approval Voting. Focusing on an alleged one-person, one-vote violation in this, advocates of IRV have claimed that Brown v. Smallwood will not apply, in any challenge, to IRV. However, the majority argued in Brown v. Smallwood, most strongly, against the principle of any kind of alternative vote, so some legal advisors have given the opinion that Brown v. Smallwood does indeed apply to other alternative voting systems. There was a dissent in Brown v. Smallwood which specifically attempted to refute the one-person, one-vote argument, and there is evidence in the record of this case that predominant legal opinion of the time, as well as other precedent in U.S. law, was reversed by the court, and the judgment in Brown v. Smallwood was not replicated elsewhere.
Con: "If it ain't broke don't fix it" or "Plurality Voting is Good Enough"
Some point to the fact that most elections in the U.S. use plurality voting, and voters seem to accept plurality winners as legitimate. The fact that some revered leaders, such as Abraham Lincoln did not receive a majority of the vote is sometimes mentioned. Others argue that a voting method that allows a candidate to win who is the LEAST favorite choice of a majority of voters (as is the case with plurality voting) is a disaster waiting to happen, and that majority rule should be a bedrock of our democracy. Plurality voting also increases the likelihood of "spoiler" scenarios, with all that that entails. Critics of IRV allege that these problems can be solved more reliably or more efficiently with other reformed methods.
IRV, it is argued:
* takes more effort for voters compared to Plurality voting or some other systems;
* doesn't give voters a second chance to re-evaluate candidates as with an actual runoff;
* doesn't guarantee a true majority-supported winner;
* is more expensive to count than Plurality voting or Approval Voting, requiring changes to vote counting procedures or voting equipment.
* has more Bayesian regret than range voting.
Majority-choice approval (MCA) is a voting system devised by Forest Simmons in April 2002 for use with three-slot ballots. That is, the voter has three possible choices for rating each candidate: ‘favored’, ‘accepted’, or ‘disapproved’. A rating of either ‘favored’ or ‘accepted’ signifies approval of the candidate.
If at least one candidate is marked ‘favored’ by more than 50% of the voters, then the candidate marked ‘favored’ on the most ballots is elected. Otherwise, the winner is the candidate with the highest approval (i.e., the sum of ‘favored’ and ‘accepted’ marks). Ties can be broken based on the number of ‘favored’ marks.
Thus, MCA is equivalent to Bucklin voting with the voter only able to classify in two slots, but able to vote any number of candidates in those slots.
Under an optional rule, when no candidate receives approval from a majority of the voters, all candidates are considered to be rejected by the voters. (See also None of the Above.)
Another commonly suggested election method using three-slot ballots is to assign a number of points for each rating, and to elect the candidate with the greatest number of points. This results in the three-slot version of range voting, and would possess the particular properties of that method.
Voters may mark any candidate independently of other candidates: there is no limit on the number of candidates that may be marked into any one of the three categories. This independence of marking choice avoids the problem of overvoting. Such independence is lacking in forced-ranking methods such IRV and Borda count, and in some other constrained methods such as usual plurality voting.
The name "Majority-Choice Approval" was suggested by Joe Weinstein.
Commentary
Majority-choice approval satisfies the monotonicity criterion and the independence of clones criterion. It would satisfy the majority criterion were it not for the fact that voters are allowed to mark more than one candidate as Favored.
Plurality voting turns distinct but legitimate voter objectives into mutual spoilers: voters cannot both effectively support more than one favored, or support both a favored and an acceptable compromise candidate.
The three levels in MCA is just enough for Favored, Compromise, and Disapproved, the minimum required for solving the spoiler problem without erasing the distinction between Favored and Compromise. This turns out to be an important distinction and is the main reason most IRV supporters believe that IRV solves the spoiler problem better than approval does.
Majority-Choice Approval not only truly solves the spoilage problem in a way that incorporates the three-level distinction, but it also solves the quite different ‘majority-rule’ problem in a way that IRV cannot - you can't determine if the winner of an IRV vote won because of spoilage, genuine majority approval or one of many other procedural paradoxes that flaws IRV.
Example
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This shows that Nashville wins, and that everyone would accept Chattanooga as an alternative. (The majority of voters did not disapprove of Chattanooga.)
The results would be as follows: (Assume the voters favor the first city, accept the next 2 cities, and reject the last city.)
1 style"empty-cells: show">
No city is favored by a majority, so the city with most approval votes (favored + accepted) wins. Nashville and Chattanooga are tied at 100% approval since nobody voted against either. However, Nashville has more favored votes than the other, so it wins. The higher number of favored votes is what breaks the tie.
Drawbacks
In its procedure for deciding a winner, in general, fails the Consistency criterion. It works one way under one condition and another way under another condition. As for almost all such hybrids, the method is inconsistent, in the sense that a candidate A may win all precincts but not the entire electorate. Here this inconsistency can occur if A wins some precincts on account of being majority favorite; but wins other precincts, which lack majority favorites, on account of being most approved.
For instance, consider an electorate of two five-voter precincts, and a contest among five candidates A-E. Each marked ballot favors exactly one candidate X and accepts exactly one other candidate Y - symbolized below by
the format XY.
1 style"empty-cells: show">
A wins precinct #1 as the majority choice and precinct #2 as the most approved; but B wins the entire electorate as the most approved.
For Majority-Choice Approval (unlike some other methods) such inconsistency is easy to accept. The reason is simple: we prefer a majority favorite, which we may in fact happen to get in some precincts but do not necessarily expect to get overall.
MCA is not a Condorcet method, thus does not satisfy the Condorcet criterion.
MCA does not satisfy the Independence of irrelevant alternatives criterion.
MCA also shares a potential drawback with Approval voting: Voters may disapprove of all other candidates except their favorites. If a large majority of electors vote exclusively for their different favorites, the outcome of an election using MCA would resemble Plurality voting. There is, however, less incentive for voters to not vote for additional candidates under MCA than under Approval voting, as candidates rated 'favored' have an opportunity to win before being counted equivalently to those candidates rated 'accepted.'
Participation criterion failure example
The Participation criterion requires that a voter must not be able to obtain a preferable result from the election by not voting.
MCA does not satisfy this criterion. Example:
Assume that there are 100 voters and 3 candidates: A, B, and C.
51 A(favored), C(accepted), B(disapproved)
49 C(favored), B(accepted), A(disapproved)
Candidate A is elected, as A was 'favored' by more than half of the voters.
Now, suppose that three more voters are added:
51 A(favored), C(accepted), B(disapproved)
49 C(favored), B(accepted), A(disapproved)
3 B(favored), A(accepted), C(disapproved)
Now no candidate is 'favored' by more than half of the voters. Candidate C wins due to having the highest approval.
This is a failure of the Participation criterion, because by showing up to vote, the three additional voters caused their least favorite candidate to be elected.
External resources
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If at least one candidate is marked ‘favored’ by more than 50% of the voters, then the candidate marked ‘favored’ on the most ballots is elected. Otherwise, the winner is the candidate with the highest approval (i.e., the sum of ‘favored’ and ‘accepted’ marks). Ties can be broken based on the number of ‘favored’ marks.
Thus, MCA is equivalent to Bucklin voting with the voter only able to classify in two slots, but able to vote any number of candidates in those slots.
Under an optional rule, when no candidate receives approval from a majority of the voters, all candidates are considered to be rejected by the voters. (See also None of the Above.)
Another commonly suggested election method using three-slot ballots is to assign a number of points for each rating, and to elect the candidate with the greatest number of points. This results in the three-slot version of range voting, and would possess the particular properties of that method.
Voters may mark any candidate independently of other candidates: there is no limit on the number of candidates that may be marked into any one of the three categories. This independence of marking choice avoids the problem of overvoting. Such independence is lacking in forced-ranking methods such IRV and Borda count, and in some other constrained methods such as usual plurality voting.
The name "Majority-Choice Approval" was suggested by Joe Weinstein.
Commentary
Majority-choice approval satisfies the monotonicity criterion and the independence of clones criterion. It would satisfy the majority criterion were it not for the fact that voters are allowed to mark more than one candidate as Favored.
Plurality voting turns distinct but legitimate voter objectives into mutual spoilers: voters cannot both effectively support more than one favored, or support both a favored and an acceptable compromise candidate.
The three levels in MCA is just enough for Favored, Compromise, and Disapproved, the minimum required for solving the spoiler problem without erasing the distinction between Favored and Compromise. This turns out to be an important distinction and is the main reason most IRV supporters believe that IRV solves the spoiler problem better than approval does.
Majority-Choice Approval not only truly solves the spoilage problem in a way that incorporates the three-level distinction, but it also solves the quite different ‘majority-rule’ problem in a way that IRV cannot - you can't determine if the winner of an IRV vote won because of spoilage, genuine majority approval or one of many other procedural paradoxes that flaws IRV.
Example
This shows that Nashville wins, and that everyone would accept Chattanooga as an alternative. (The majority of voters did not disapprove of Chattanooga.)
The results would be as follows: (Assume the voters favor the first city, accept the next 2 cities, and reject the last city.)
| City | Favor | Accept | Dislike |
|---|---|---|---|
| Memphis | 42 | 0 | 58 |
| Nashville | 26 | 74 | 0 |
| Chattanooga | 15 | 85 | 0 |
| Knoxville | 17 | 41 | 42 |
No city is favored by a majority, so the city with most approval votes (favored + accepted) wins. Nashville and Chattanooga are tied at 100% approval since nobody voted against either. However, Nashville has more favored votes than the other, so it wins. The higher number of favored votes is what breaks the tie.
Drawbacks
In its procedure for deciding a winner, in general, fails the Consistency criterion. It works one way under one condition and another way under another condition. As for almost all such hybrids, the method is inconsistent, in the sense that a candidate A may win all precincts but not the entire electorate. Here this inconsistency can occur if A wins some precincts on account of being majority favorite; but wins other precincts, which lack majority favorites, on account of being most approved.
For instance, consider an electorate of two five-voter precincts, and a contest among five candidates A-E. Each marked ballot favors exactly one candidate X and accepts exactly one other candidate Y - symbolized below by
the format XY.
| Ballots in precinct #1 | AB | AB | AB | CB | DB |
| Ballots in precinct #2 | AB | BA | BA | CA | DE |
A wins precinct #1 as the majority choice and precinct #2 as the most approved; but B wins the entire electorate as the most approved.
For Majority-Choice Approval (unlike some other methods) such inconsistency is easy to accept. The reason is simple: we prefer a majority favorite, which we may in fact happen to get in some precincts but do not necessarily expect to get overall.
MCA is not a Condorcet method, thus does not satisfy the Condorcet criterion.
MCA does not satisfy the Independence of irrelevant alternatives criterion.
MCA also shares a potential drawback with Approval voting: Voters may disapprove of all other candidates except their favorites. If a large majority of electors vote exclusively for their different favorites, the outcome of an election using MCA would resemble Plurality voting. There is, however, less incentive for voters to not vote for additional candidates under MCA than under Approval voting, as candidates rated 'favored' have an opportunity to win before being counted equivalently to those candidates rated 'accepted.'
Participation criterion failure example
The Participation criterion requires that a voter must not be able to obtain a preferable result from the election by not voting.
MCA does not satisfy this criterion. Example:
Assume that there are 100 voters and 3 candidates: A, B, and C.
51 A(favored), C(accepted), B(disapproved)
49 C(favored), B(accepted), A(disapproved)
Candidate A is elected, as A was 'favored' by more than half of the voters.
Now, suppose that three more voters are added:
51 A(favored), C(accepted), B(disapproved)
49 C(favored), B(accepted), A(disapproved)
3 B(favored), A(accepted), C(disapproved)
Now no candidate is 'favored' by more than half of the voters. Candidate C wins due to having the highest approval.
This is a failure of the Participation criterion, because by showing up to vote, the three additional voters caused their least favorite candidate to be elected.
External resources
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Vijnanavada Buddhism – the Ultimate in Indian Metaphysical Speculation.
R. Chandrasoma
Speculative Buddhist scholarship (as distinguished from the salvational and worshipful aspects of Buddhism) reached its peak in the period following the epochal work of Nagarjuna – widely regarded as one of the acutest minds among the religious thinkers of India. It is important to note here that the great schism between Indian Sanskritic Buddhism and the Pali-based ‘Southern Buddhism’ had already taken place and the two streams evolved during this period in tragic isolation. The Southern or Theravada school had no links with the fluxional pluralists of India (the Sarvastivadins) who developed subtle and consistent philosophies based on their reading of the earliest texts attributable to our Compassionate Teacher. Their writings (in Sanskrit) were destroyed by their Brahamanical competitors and we have to rely on Tibetan translations to get an inkling of the power and complex beauty of their thought. Arguably, it is a great pity that ‘Hinayana’ (or Theravada) Buddhism of the Pali school that flourished in Sri Lanka is generally taken as the standard formulation of early Buddhism despite its very evident lack of philosophical rigor in the discussion of basic issues in ontology and epistemology. Buddhagosha – the great name in Pali Buddhist scholarship - was an erudite compiler and systematizer but lacked the intellectual daring of his contemporaries in India. While the Pali Abidharma (the metaphysical part of the Buddhist expository triad of collections of sutras) is replete with lists and complex classifications, the presentation lacks consistency and clarity in the chains of deduction found therein. The ‘Patticca Samupada’ (doctrine of dependant origination) as formulated in the Pali works is a good example of the laxity that is characteristic of this genre of Buddhist writing. The confusion over the ‘dathu’ (universal elements). ‘skandhas’ (fluxional aggregates constituting persons) and ‘dharmas’( base ontological elements of the phenomenal flux) can hardly be overlooked by anyone making a careful study of the Pali texts. Let me hasten to add that these doubts and confusions arise from a misinterpretation of the pristine (oral) teaching of the Buddha - which suffers inevitable distortion when written down as argumentative schemata. That there is more than a touch of the ineffable in the message of our Sublime Teacher is a truism that all interpreters of the Buddha-word must concede.
Given the scarcity of authentic texts, the difficulties of interpretation and the intellectual penetration of the savants of the Sanskritic School, it was inevitable that their version of the Theravada metaphysic (as enunciated by the Sarvastivadins and the Vaibhasikas) attracted little critical scholarship in latter-day studies of Buddhism. This was certainly not the case during the time of Nagajuna (around the second century AD) - who directed the full force of his destructive dialectic against the metaphysical theses of the Sanskritic Theravadins. The doctrine of ‘dependant origination’ was minutely scrutinized and found to be riddled with logico-metaphysical fallacies. Using the technique of ‘reductio ad absurdum’ in a manner strongly reminiscent of that employed by the Greek thinkers Zeno and Parmenides, he found the concepts of ‘causal connection’, ‘flux’ and ‘substance’ to be irremediably contradictory. The doctrine of ‘Dharmas’ or ultimate fluxional elements was savaged by Nagarjuna. More damagingly he found the debate over ‘atman’ (i.e. the anatta stand of the Buddhists) futile and of little relevance to the spiritual life of the saint or arahat.
Given this flagrant rejection of the base-tenets of Buddhist metaphysics, it would come as no great surprise if someone jumped to the conclusion that Nargarjuna was an enemy of Buddhism. Not so – he was an ardent Buddhist and wrote devotional stanzas of great beauty in praise of the Enlightened One. How is this conflict resolved? He argued that it is the life of the Buddha (the Career of the Bodhisattva) that is our guide and inspiration in shortening our samsaric journey and in attaining the final goal of Nirvana.. The arguments (in the Buddhist corpus) were for the less gifted who lacked the spiritual insight necessary to see that all predications are contradictory and that the ultimate cannot have cognitive ‘handles’ – all descriptions of it are false. Emptiness is the essence of the world. It is only by the perfection of an intellectual intuition vouchsafed to the saint (prajna-paramita) that this all-encompassing Void (sunyata) can become manifest as a total transmogrification of the perspective of the seeker.
The doctrine of the Void was fiercely attacked by the contemporary Vedantists who dismissed it as a nihilist doctrine that led nowhere. Chief among them was Shankara, idolized as the champion of the Hindu philosophical revival. He was a passionate hater of the Buddhists despite the fact that his teacher, Gaudapala, was a Buddhist and that he was not averse to borrowing wholesale the dialectical techniques developed by the Madhyamika school of Buddhism of which Nagarjuna was the founder. Indeed, many see the ‘advaitya’ (non-dual) philosophy of Shankara as a form of absolutism directly inspired by the earlier Buddhist version authored by Nagarjuna. We shall not pursue this matter further as it involves the painful story of the extirpation of Buddhism from India by its implacable Hindu foes.
The absolutism of the Mahyamika school was attacked from another quarter – albeit this time to refine it and make it more palatable to mainstream Buddhism. The Yogacara school of dynamic idealism (Vijnanavada) was developed by two encyclopedic scholars – Asanga and Vasubandhu. Their subtle thinking on the profoundest issues of metaphysics received its final polish in the hands of India’s greatest logicians, Dignaga and Dharmakirti. Let us try to put into words the essence of their thought. While Nagarjuna pictured the ultimate as the Void (sunyata), the Vijnanavadins declared that ‘Consciousness’ (vijnana) was the base-stuff of the world. Recall that the ‘father’ of modern philosophy (Descartes) using his celebrated method of doubt, found that the 'I' that doubts is the very foundation of the given. (Cogito, ergo sum). Among others, Bertrand Russell found this a fallacious conclusion – it is the state of thought or conscious awareness that is absolutely fundamental. The notion of an ‘I’ or ego is a secondary foisting, a mental artifact. The Vijnanavadins, in consonance with standard Buddhist thinking rejected the notion of an autonomous perceiver but accepted the fact that ‘consciousness’ cannot be explained away by dialectical arguments of the kind so brilliantly used by the disciples of Nagajuna. The Vijnanavadins argued that the Void being necessarily inert, featureless and unfathomable, cannot be the basis of the observed dynamism of the phenomenal world. They pointed out that a generalized and universal consciousness (vijnana) was the ontological ultimate by any method of reckoning and that the Madhyamika concept of the Void must be replaced by an all-encompassing stuff of the world that is none other than a Universal Consciousness (Alaya Vijnana). Note that consciousness as an individual perspective (as in Berkleyan idealism) is replaced by an all-pervading ‘conscious field’. A unique feature that distinguishes the Buddhist vijnanavada doctrine from the vulgar brands of idealism was its ‘storehouse’ capacity (Tathagata-garbha). It was an active generator of illusory perspectives by virtue of its inner dynamism. The ‘vacuum fluctuations’ of this Universal Consciousness created persons and perceived things, cats and dogs, Gods and Devils and the rest of the world-stuff as an expression of its inherent activity. The highest wisdom of the saint is to see that the phenomenal flux of which he is a part is a Grand Illusion or ‘hologram’ that is taken for the real until the expulsion of the masking ignorance (avidya) regarding the true nature of things. Liberation from this illusive bondage (moksha) is through an inner vision of the ‘suchness’(tathata) of the world - its generative field of world-mocking consciousness. In reaching this highest state of understanding, he dissolves himself in the anonymity of the Absolute.
The Vedantists led by Shankara directed their heaviest fire at the Vijnanavdins. How can a pure universal stuff generate diversity? The perceiver and the perceived which are diametrically opposed in nature cannot have the same root. Causal action and temporal history cannot be based on absolute homogeneity. These objections (to which a reply is given below) can be raised with equal pungency against the ‘advaitya’ doctrine of Shankara. How did the One (Brahman) which is the unshakeable unitary base of the world generate fish and fowl? It is no good saying that all this is an illusion – we can ask what caused the illusion - leading to an infinite regress. What is the meaning of spiritual purification (on which there a great ho-ha in Hindu religion) if the self is none other than the One? Are Illusion and Evil excrescences indwelling in the One?
Let us return to the Universal Consciousness of the Vijnanavadins. The problem of the genesis of minds and perceived things from a seemingly passive and unstructured pabulum is best clarified by analogy with a similar problem facing physicists and cosmologists. The ‘vacuum state’ of quantum physics is truly empty but seethes with quantum fluctuations (‘vibes’) that can give rise to anything ranging from a fundamental particle such as an electron to a whole universe. It is the ‘alaya vijnana’ of the Buddhists. It stores a potential that is unlimited and unpredictable. An innate ‘movement’ (we use this term for want of a better word) causes an illusion of dynamic activity that is manifested in seemingly miraculous ways. Such things as humans and galaxies are the result - convincingly real but in actuality no more than froth in a sea of nothingness. The famous contemporary physicist John Wheeler sees the physical world as a phantom based on the sporadic appearance of conscious minds (perceivers) in a sea of vacuum fluctuations. The appearance of minds creates a complementary world for its apperception. However, both world and mind are mere ephemeral ‘twists’ in nothingness.
It would be wrong to impute to the great scholars of Early Buddhism the kind of thinking that is current in today’s physics. Yet the similarity is striking. While the Vedantists see their Brahman under every bush, the far-sighted Buddhists see the world as a phantasmagoric epiphenomenon on a world-stuff that is dimensionally and predicatively unaccountable. It is neither matter nor mind (as ordinarily conceived) – it is the Dharmakaya (doctrinal body) of the Mahayanists.
A word of advice may not be out of place at this juncture – a strange world-view or philosophy is truly grasped by putting ones mind in resonance with the novel, re-creating in oneself the congeries of thinking that agitated the mind of the innovator. Trying to understand the words of a text (the philological approach that is much in vogue) is the wrong way of approaching a metaphysical mindset that deviates sharply from our own. Alas, Buddhist scholarship has suffered grievously because of this philological nitpicking that substitutes for the understanding of complexities that are too difficult for words.
To conclude, here is a misreading (or misinterpretation) that is deliberate and tendentious. The late President of India – the Dean of the Contemporary School of Indian Philosophy - Sir Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan – declared that ‘Buddhism is an ethical development of the Upanishads. The Buddha, like all other spiritual leaders of India, based his thinkinChanraj 10:53, 18 October 2007 (UTC)g on the Vedic mysteries’. This is a blatant falsehood. To compare the complex subtleties of Buddhism with the incantations of the god-besotted early Aryans is like comparing the Calculus with the counting-frame arithmetic of ancient peoples. Such is the power and influence of the Brahamanic leadership of India that it has had no trouble foisting the myth that Buddhism is a ‘minor offshoot’ of the perennial rootstock of ‘Hindu’ religion. This was one of the many strategies used in making Buddhism dysfunctional in the land of its origin. Around the 11th Century AD, Buddhism was driven out of India. The New Hindu Zealots mortally wounded Buddhism while the coupe de grace was delivered by the sword-wielding Islamic fanatics.
R. Chandrasoma
Speculative Buddhist scholarship (as distinguished from the salvational and worshipful aspects of Buddhism) reached its peak in the period following the epochal work of Nagarjuna – widely regarded as one of the acutest minds among the religious thinkers of India. It is important to note here that the great schism between Indian Sanskritic Buddhism and the Pali-based ‘Southern Buddhism’ had already taken place and the two streams evolved during this period in tragic isolation. The Southern or Theravada school had no links with the fluxional pluralists of India (the Sarvastivadins) who developed subtle and consistent philosophies based on their reading of the earliest texts attributable to our Compassionate Teacher. Their writings (in Sanskrit) were destroyed by their Brahamanical competitors and we have to rely on Tibetan translations to get an inkling of the power and complex beauty of their thought. Arguably, it is a great pity that ‘Hinayana’ (or Theravada) Buddhism of the Pali school that flourished in Sri Lanka is generally taken as the standard formulation of early Buddhism despite its very evident lack of philosophical rigor in the discussion of basic issues in ontology and epistemology. Buddhagosha – the great name in Pali Buddhist scholarship - was an erudite compiler and systematizer but lacked the intellectual daring of his contemporaries in India. While the Pali Abidharma (the metaphysical part of the Buddhist expository triad of collections of sutras) is replete with lists and complex classifications, the presentation lacks consistency and clarity in the chains of deduction found therein. The ‘Patticca Samupada’ (doctrine of dependant origination) as formulated in the Pali works is a good example of the laxity that is characteristic of this genre of Buddhist writing. The confusion over the ‘dathu’ (universal elements). ‘skandhas’ (fluxional aggregates constituting persons) and ‘dharmas’( base ontological elements of the phenomenal flux) can hardly be overlooked by anyone making a careful study of the Pali texts. Let me hasten to add that these doubts and confusions arise from a misinterpretation of the pristine (oral) teaching of the Buddha - which suffers inevitable distortion when written down as argumentative schemata. That there is more than a touch of the ineffable in the message of our Sublime Teacher is a truism that all interpreters of the Buddha-word must concede.
Given the scarcity of authentic texts, the difficulties of interpretation and the intellectual penetration of the savants of the Sanskritic School, it was inevitable that their version of the Theravada metaphysic (as enunciated by the Sarvastivadins and the Vaibhasikas) attracted little critical scholarship in latter-day studies of Buddhism. This was certainly not the case during the time of Nagajuna (around the second century AD) - who directed the full force of his destructive dialectic against the metaphysical theses of the Sanskritic Theravadins. The doctrine of ‘dependant origination’ was minutely scrutinized and found to be riddled with logico-metaphysical fallacies. Using the technique of ‘reductio ad absurdum’ in a manner strongly reminiscent of that employed by the Greek thinkers Zeno and Parmenides, he found the concepts of ‘causal connection’, ‘flux’ and ‘substance’ to be irremediably contradictory. The doctrine of ‘Dharmas’ or ultimate fluxional elements was savaged by Nagarjuna. More damagingly he found the debate over ‘atman’ (i.e. the anatta stand of the Buddhists) futile and of little relevance to the spiritual life of the saint or arahat.
Given this flagrant rejection of the base-tenets of Buddhist metaphysics, it would come as no great surprise if someone jumped to the conclusion that Nargarjuna was an enemy of Buddhism. Not so – he was an ardent Buddhist and wrote devotional stanzas of great beauty in praise of the Enlightened One. How is this conflict resolved? He argued that it is the life of the Buddha (the Career of the Bodhisattva) that is our guide and inspiration in shortening our samsaric journey and in attaining the final goal of Nirvana.. The arguments (in the Buddhist corpus) were for the less gifted who lacked the spiritual insight necessary to see that all predications are contradictory and that the ultimate cannot have cognitive ‘handles’ – all descriptions of it are false. Emptiness is the essence of the world. It is only by the perfection of an intellectual intuition vouchsafed to the saint (prajna-paramita) that this all-encompassing Void (sunyata) can become manifest as a total transmogrification of the perspective of the seeker.
The doctrine of the Void was fiercely attacked by the contemporary Vedantists who dismissed it as a nihilist doctrine that led nowhere. Chief among them was Shankara, idolized as the champion of the Hindu philosophical revival. He was a passionate hater of the Buddhists despite the fact that his teacher, Gaudapala, was a Buddhist and that he was not averse to borrowing wholesale the dialectical techniques developed by the Madhyamika school of Buddhism of which Nagarjuna was the founder. Indeed, many see the ‘advaitya’ (non-dual) philosophy of Shankara as a form of absolutism directly inspired by the earlier Buddhist version authored by Nagarjuna. We shall not pursue this matter further as it involves the painful story of the extirpation of Buddhism from India by its implacable Hindu foes.
The absolutism of the Mahyamika school was attacked from another quarter – albeit this time to refine it and make it more palatable to mainstream Buddhism. The Yogacara school of dynamic idealism (Vijnanavada) was developed by two encyclopedic scholars – Asanga and Vasubandhu. Their subtle thinking on the profoundest issues of metaphysics received its final polish in the hands of India’s greatest logicians, Dignaga and Dharmakirti. Let us try to put into words the essence of their thought. While Nagarjuna pictured the ultimate as the Void (sunyata), the Vijnanavadins declared that ‘Consciousness’ (vijnana) was the base-stuff of the world. Recall that the ‘father’ of modern philosophy (Descartes) using his celebrated method of doubt, found that the 'I' that doubts is the very foundation of the given. (Cogito, ergo sum). Among others, Bertrand Russell found this a fallacious conclusion – it is the state of thought or conscious awareness that is absolutely fundamental. The notion of an ‘I’ or ego is a secondary foisting, a mental artifact. The Vijnanavadins, in consonance with standard Buddhist thinking rejected the notion of an autonomous perceiver but accepted the fact that ‘consciousness’ cannot be explained away by dialectical arguments of the kind so brilliantly used by the disciples of Nagajuna. The Vijnanavadins argued that the Void being necessarily inert, featureless and unfathomable, cannot be the basis of the observed dynamism of the phenomenal world. They pointed out that a generalized and universal consciousness (vijnana) was the ontological ultimate by any method of reckoning and that the Madhyamika concept of the Void must be replaced by an all-encompassing stuff of the world that is none other than a Universal Consciousness (Alaya Vijnana). Note that consciousness as an individual perspective (as in Berkleyan idealism) is replaced by an all-pervading ‘conscious field’. A unique feature that distinguishes the Buddhist vijnanavada doctrine from the vulgar brands of idealism was its ‘storehouse’ capacity (Tathagata-garbha). It was an active generator of illusory perspectives by virtue of its inner dynamism. The ‘vacuum fluctuations’ of this Universal Consciousness created persons and perceived things, cats and dogs, Gods and Devils and the rest of the world-stuff as an expression of its inherent activity. The highest wisdom of the saint is to see that the phenomenal flux of which he is a part is a Grand Illusion or ‘hologram’ that is taken for the real until the expulsion of the masking ignorance (avidya) regarding the true nature of things. Liberation from this illusive bondage (moksha) is through an inner vision of the ‘suchness’(tathata) of the world - its generative field of world-mocking consciousness. In reaching this highest state of understanding, he dissolves himself in the anonymity of the Absolute.
The Vedantists led by Shankara directed their heaviest fire at the Vijnanavdins. How can a pure universal stuff generate diversity? The perceiver and the perceived which are diametrically opposed in nature cannot have the same root. Causal action and temporal history cannot be based on absolute homogeneity. These objections (to which a reply is given below) can be raised with equal pungency against the ‘advaitya’ doctrine of Shankara. How did the One (Brahman) which is the unshakeable unitary base of the world generate fish and fowl? It is no good saying that all this is an illusion – we can ask what caused the illusion - leading to an infinite regress. What is the meaning of spiritual purification (on which there a great ho-ha in Hindu religion) if the self is none other than the One? Are Illusion and Evil excrescences indwelling in the One?
Let us return to the Universal Consciousness of the Vijnanavadins. The problem of the genesis of minds and perceived things from a seemingly passive and unstructured pabulum is best clarified by analogy with a similar problem facing physicists and cosmologists. The ‘vacuum state’ of quantum physics is truly empty but seethes with quantum fluctuations (‘vibes’) that can give rise to anything ranging from a fundamental particle such as an electron to a whole universe. It is the ‘alaya vijnana’ of the Buddhists. It stores a potential that is unlimited and unpredictable. An innate ‘movement’ (we use this term for want of a better word) causes an illusion of dynamic activity that is manifested in seemingly miraculous ways. Such things as humans and galaxies are the result - convincingly real but in actuality no more than froth in a sea of nothingness. The famous contemporary physicist John Wheeler sees the physical world as a phantom based on the sporadic appearance of conscious minds (perceivers) in a sea of vacuum fluctuations. The appearance of minds creates a complementary world for its apperception. However, both world and mind are mere ephemeral ‘twists’ in nothingness.
It would be wrong to impute to the great scholars of Early Buddhism the kind of thinking that is current in today’s physics. Yet the similarity is striking. While the Vedantists see their Brahman under every bush, the far-sighted Buddhists see the world as a phantasmagoric epiphenomenon on a world-stuff that is dimensionally and predicatively unaccountable. It is neither matter nor mind (as ordinarily conceived) – it is the Dharmakaya (doctrinal body) of the Mahayanists.
A word of advice may not be out of place at this juncture – a strange world-view or philosophy is truly grasped by putting ones mind in resonance with the novel, re-creating in oneself the congeries of thinking that agitated the mind of the innovator. Trying to understand the words of a text (the philological approach that is much in vogue) is the wrong way of approaching a metaphysical mindset that deviates sharply from our own. Alas, Buddhist scholarship has suffered grievously because of this philological nitpicking that substitutes for the understanding of complexities that are too difficult for words.
To conclude, here is a misreading (or misinterpretation) that is deliberate and tendentious. The late President of India – the Dean of the Contemporary School of Indian Philosophy - Sir Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan – declared that ‘Buddhism is an ethical development of the Upanishads. The Buddha, like all other spiritual leaders of India, based his thinkinChanraj 10:53, 18 October 2007 (UTC)g on the Vedic mysteries’. This is a blatant falsehood. To compare the complex subtleties of Buddhism with the incantations of the god-besotted early Aryans is like comparing the Calculus with the counting-frame arithmetic of ancient peoples. Such is the power and influence of the Brahamanic leadership of India that it has had no trouble foisting the myth that Buddhism is a ‘minor offshoot’ of the perennial rootstock of ‘Hindu’ religion. This was one of the many strategies used in making Buddhism dysfunctional in the land of its origin. Around the 11th Century AD, Buddhism was driven out of India. The New Hindu Zealots mortally wounded Buddhism while the coupe de grace was delivered by the sword-wielding Islamic fanatics.
Provincialism in Romania is defined as the discrimination between its people based on the region they inhabit. The discrimination can take many different forms and can target culture, history, and language.
On history
Queen Marie of Romania called Wallachia for being "central to Romania's history" and as such, justified the Wallachian eagle being the most prominent element in the country's coat-of-arms. Wallachian propaganda suggested that Wallachia was one of the the core province of Dacia, whereas Moldavia was less Dacian in its legacy; their propaganda went so far as suggesting that Moldavians are less Romanian than the Wallachians.
Anti-Moldavian discrimination
Discrimination against Moldavians is for the most part, practiced in southern Romania, in the historical region of Wallachia. There have been reports of Wallachians refusing to serve meatballs to Moldavians due to, what the Wallachians argue, is an inproper regionalistic word: the Moldavians use the word "purjoala" whereas the Wallachians use the word "chiftea." In a poll conducted in Bucharest, the students gave the Moldavians a poor rating, arguing that they are drunkards, lazy, and dumb.
Anti-discrimination stand
Consiliul NaÅ£ional al Reîntregirii (The National Counsel of Refittement) is a non-profit organization based in Bucharest and ChiÅŸinău with the prime objective to combat regional discrimination between Romanians.
Footnotes
On history
Queen Marie of Romania called Wallachia for being "central to Romania's history" and as such, justified the Wallachian eagle being the most prominent element in the country's coat-of-arms. Wallachian propaganda suggested that Wallachia was one of the the core province of Dacia, whereas Moldavia was less Dacian in its legacy; their propaganda went so far as suggesting that Moldavians are less Romanian than the Wallachians.
Anti-Moldavian discrimination
Discrimination against Moldavians is for the most part, practiced in southern Romania, in the historical region of Wallachia. There have been reports of Wallachians refusing to serve meatballs to Moldavians due to, what the Wallachians argue, is an inproper regionalistic word: the Moldavians use the word "purjoala" whereas the Wallachians use the word "chiftea." In a poll conducted in Bucharest, the students gave the Moldavians a poor rating, arguing that they are drunkards, lazy, and dumb.
Anti-discrimination stand
Consiliul NaÅ£ional al Reîntregirii (The National Counsel of Refittement) is a non-profit organization based in Bucharest and ChiÅŸinău with the prime objective to combat regional discrimination between Romanians.
Footnotes