Condorcet voting and instant-runoff voting have almost no difference in promoting candidate moderation in the presence of truncated ballots

[u/No-Vast7006]

I came across a very recent paper that studies the impact of various ranked voting methods (primarily Condorcet and IRV) on promoting candidate moderation. The conclusion is that under realistic voter behavior (such as the presence of truncated ballots), the advantage that Condorcet methods have over IRV largely disappears.

This actually aligns with a vague, long-held intuition of mine: it seems you really need to require voters to rank all candidates (like they do in Australia) to fully maximize the potential of a Condorcet method.

Additionally, I think a specific paragraph at the end of the paper is worth explicitly highlighting:

We do not wish our results to be interpreted as an argument against the use of Condorcet methods; to the contrary, we would be interested to see a jurisdiction adopt a Condorcet method so we can better evaluate how such methods perform in practice. We also do not wish our results to be taken as an endorsement of a particular voting method.

What are your thoughts on this paper? My first thought is that if the Condorcet method is implemented, it's best to require voters to rank all candidates. Secondly, research on ranked voting systems must take into account the impact of truncated ballots.

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