Talk:2022 Alaska's at-large congressional district special election

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Orphaned references in 2022 Alaska's at-large congressional district special election[edit]

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of 2022 Alaska's at-large congressional district special election's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "politics1":

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 15:40, 19 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

 Done ---CX Zoom(he/him) (let's talk|contribs) 16:42, 19 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This article's creation[edit]

Wikipedia is not a news site, or at least as far as we continue to be told in project space. Was there any real need to create this article before Dunleavy's proclamation? I couldn't help but notice that the article's creators are the usual gang of SPAs who specialize in excessively puffed-up content, often dubiously-sourced, about elections which haven't yet taken place. This means that facts and sources aren't settled. They never bother to stick around any of these articles once that is the case. Giving them such free reign to do this means that we are effectively creating a news site and not recognizing the difference between that and an encyclopedia. Gutting the article's content certainly appears to be justified, but it's insulting to look at a bunch of subject headers and templates containing no meaningful content. It's even more insulting to give this higher a priority than long-notable topics with long-settled facts and sources. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 22:57, 19 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

But wait, there's more[edit]

John Coghill filed Monday morning. Curiously, I'm finding no coverage. I learned about it through a mutual friend on Facebook, which seems to be just as valid as some of the sources I'm currently seeing in the article (e.g. blog posts and tweets). RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 05:09, 29 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@RadioKAOS: Forgot to reply, but there is news coverage for this, which I've added. Also, I don't see blog posts and tweets being used as sources in this specific article, which would be unreliable. —twotwofourtysix(My talk page and contributions) 10:48, 29 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
As far as my Google search of several minutes ago is concerned, the headline in the Anchorage Daily News reads "Gross, Coghill say they plan to run for Alaska US House seat". This story was published 16 hours after Coghill actually filed. While many of us are acutely aware of how far local newspapers have fallen from grace, this is not very "reliable" from a regional newspaper of record in a world where so many are obsessed with 24/7, up-to-the-minute news (with Wikipedia doing its best to play along).
Since you say "I don't see", I'll happily critique the sources and the development of the article in general. The first issue is the separate "Declared" and "Filed paperwork" sections. Declared according to whom? There's a severely abbreviated filing window and a recent browsing of the FEC website turned up nothing specific to this election. Without that verification, the "declaration" is solely in the mind of the individuals listed and/or journalists friendly to them, using the mere existence of reliable sources to justify inclusion. In other words, I could declare myself to be a candidate and it would be just as valid if I conned a media outlet into taking it seriously, even if I filed no paperwork. It smacks of WP:SYNTH to me. More importantly, the brevity of the filing window means the former section will cease to be of significance in just a matter of days. Quit being a slave to the same old MOS when it's not doing the topic justice. With that in mind, why are we creating a gallery for "declared" candidates but not affording the same courtesy to actual verified candidates, those who appear in the following section? Sounds promotional and a serious NPOV violation to me. The article is riddled with factual errors throughout, including those easily verified by actually reading the sources present in the article.
Now, on to the sources:
  • Source 1 — While Fox News is nominally a RS, if one browses the revision history and talk page of Young's article, you'll realize Fox initially reported that Young died at the terminal at LAX, while everyone else reported that he died on the flight to SEA or was declared dead after the plane landed. It's being used solely to source the fact that Young died and there exists a ton of higher-quality sources for that.
  • Source 4 — This truncated AP story says nothing that isn't already covered in source 2, the ADN story by Brooks and Herz. I suppose it would suffice if it were tacked on as an additional source, though.
  • Source 6 — As I refer to above, this AP story published by the SF Chronicle is the same story the ADN published today. It appears the idea is to prove that the topic is receiving coverage from a broad range of sources, even if that coverage can be traced back to the same small handful of Alaska-based journalists. It's doesn't appear to be an effort to reflect the highest-quality coverage.
  • Source 7 — The list from the Division of Elections was last updated on Friday. Brelsford filed but that isn't reflected in the article. Coghill is known to have filed but that isn't reflected in the list. There's no coverage about Revak actually filing that I could find. Which brings us to...
  • Source 8 — Must Read Alaska is a "news blog", of which there are many in Alaska (The Alaska Landmine, The Alaska Watchman and Midnight Sun AK are other popular examples). There may be credentialed journalists involved, but they are considered blogs and exist to influence elections and the political process. As I recall, WP:RSN declared several years ago that subcommunities of editors simply can't declare something to be a reliable source without vetting it through them. As MRAK is used dozens of times throughout the encyclopedia, it's clear they're not doing their job in that respect.
  • Source 9 — This story written by Herz mostly rehashes the earlier story he co-wrote.
  • Source 10 — Move along, nothing to see here. The same as numerous other instances over the past decade of journalists prodding Palin for a quote about a prospective campaign which never materializes. We're supposed to treat this one as if it exists in a vacuum?
  • Source 11 — Paywalled and not marked as such. Looks like there's statements which can't be verified without a subscription.
  • Source 12 — Reads like an editorial and not a reporting of facts.
  • Source 13 — Same as source 11.
Hope this helps. I saw multiple tweets in earlier revisions, and the same editors who've been adding such "sources" to elections articles for quite some time. I guess they've already been dealt with. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 21:04, 29 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Rep. Young under candidates[edit]

Rep. Young was running in the regular election, not this special election that was created due to his passing. He wouldn't have contemplated running in a special election created by his passing, so I don't think he should be listed at all under "Candidates"(even if as decesased). 331dot (talk) 15:27, 2 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion[edit]

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion:

You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 19:53, 5 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The less I have to do with ANI, the better. However, it's obvious that some of you have been given free reign to do your own thing, escaping the notice of the community at large, for long enough. First off, people are showing their true commitment to NPOV by repeatedly inserting copyvio photos of Nick Begich and Al Gross into this article, all the while there has been a properly-licensed photo of John Wayne Howe on Flickr for nearly a year and a half. Now that it's on Commons, you still are going nowhere near it. I'll be as clear about this as I can: NPOV MEANS WE ARE NOT HERE TO PROMOTE CERTAIN CANDIDACIES SIMPLY BECAUSE MONEY IS BEING RAISED AND SPENT. That's how articles on current elections have been built on Wikipedia for years and years. Ridiculous. Secondly, this should have been tagged with {{Historical election article}} from the start. The fact that it wasn't further shows evidence of some people's true commitment to honoring Wikipedia's core principles. What was the point of adding names to this article in the beginning which are no longer present? Please answer in a way which respects WP:NOTNEWS and WP:OR/WP:SYNTH. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 20:05, 5 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion[edit]

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 20:37, 7 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

So.. Sattler or Peltola?[edit]

@Thomascampbell123: Many news outlets, especially during the campaign, say that her surname is Peltola, including her FEC filing and the Alaska Division of Elections. More about this at Talk:Mary Sattler#Requested move 17 June 2022 and section above, please join the discussion there. I just don't wanna cause confusion to readers looking for "Peltola" only finding "Sattler", including my map only having "Peltola" in it. —twotwofourtysix(My talk page and contributions) 11:18, 18 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

+1 Peltola: Sources on this article are using Peltola to refer to her, when using only last name. —CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • {C•X}) 08:47, 20 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think that Sattler should by used unless both surnames are added to her Wikipedia page. Thomascampbell123 (talk) 00:42, 21 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ordering of Candidates[edit]

Hi all,

I'm new to Wikipedia, so I just have one quick question. How are candidates ordered, particularly in the section listing candidates who advanced to the primary? It seems alphabetical, and is this always the standard across wikipedia pages?

Thanks, Vergilreader (talk) 02:01, 19 June 2022 (UTC)Vergilreader[reply]

Yes, lists of candidates in US election articles, and indeed election articles for many other countries, are usually sorted by last name. —twotwofourtysix(My talk page and contributions) 06:00, 19 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Gross withdrawal + Sweeney advancing update[edit]

While there's little doubt that Al Gross won't appear on the general election ballot. This AP article quoted a spokesperson from the Alaska Division of Elections saying that she was still looking into whether the fifth-placed candidate (currently Tara Sweeney) would actually advance into the general election and had no answer. Not to mention that Sweeney can/may be overtaken by another candidate, eg. Santa Claus, although unlikely. However, the Alaska Landmine that first broke the story seems to be very sure about the things I mentioned here. Thoughts? —twotwofourtysix(My talk page and contributions) 04:44, 21 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Stroopwafels, 02rufus02, and David O. Johnson: Courtesy ping to interested editors —twotwofourtysix(My talk page and contributions) 04:57, 21 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Can we add a note that while reliable sources have indicated Sweeney is likely to be on the ballot, the Alaska Division of Elections is yet to clarify if a fifth placed candidate may advance into the general when one of the top four vote getters withdraws? TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 05:38, 21 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Added a note here to that end. Stroopwafels (talk) 07:43, 21 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ordering of Endorsements[edit]

Hi, I have a question regarding Sarah Palin’s endorsers. Shouldn’t we have Trump’s endorsement first before Haley’s? Or is this in chronological order? Cheers. -Conservative Alabamian (talk) 21:13, 22 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It is in alphabetical order by last name, so Haley comes before Trump. Cheers! —CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • {C•X}) 21:16, 22 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Round 2 results map[edit]

So it looks like we're not going to get any results breakdown by House district or precinct for round 2, ie. just a matchup between Peltola and Palin. If that's the case, should we keep it to the first round map only or should I add a simulated second round map based on uniform preference flows applied to all district (which might be speculative)? I'll make a first round results map by precinct soon. —twotwofourtysix(talk || edits) 09:12, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Don't do a uniform flow map, that could be factually wrong, and even if it weren't WP:NOR probably applies. That said, I'm perfectly okay with general election's first round only results if second round results are not yet available. —CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • {C•X}) 15:12, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
So I just uploaded the more official (?) second round map. Explanation's over on the file page, if you're ok with it. —twotwofourtysix(talk || edits) 15:33, 11 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Looks great to me :-) —CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • {C•X}) 17:06, 11 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion[edit]

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion:

You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 21:22, 18 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Edit reversion of results table[edit]

@CX Zoom

You have reverted my edit to the results table. Please see earlier discussion at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:2022_United_States_House_of_Representatives_election_in_Alaska#Total_votes_tallly for earlier discussion on the format of results tables for Alaska's RCV races.

Note in particular for this article, the "Election Summary Report" differs from the Round 1 results on the RCV Tabulation, so it is inaccurate to report the summary results as the round 1 results. If you have objections to this format, please bring them up at the other talk page (to keep discussion centralized) so we can reach a consensus. Thanks, 71.162.7.170 (talk) 16:51, 12 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

On IRV pathologies[edit]

@108.30.55.246 Just wanted to say that if you feel there's a need for edits to the paragraph discussing the IRV pathologies in this election, best to discuss first on the Talk page. –Sincerely, A Lime 16:43, 28 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As I’ve said, there’s no issue with using mathematical terminology, though I will caution that this is Wikipedia so it should be understandable to most readers. What I do have a problem with is only criticizing ranked choice voting (or this version of it) without providing a balanced discussion. That’s an opinion that shouldn’t be framed as fact. Stormy160 (talk) 22:10, 28 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm happy to add any additional analyses you'd like from mathematicians or social choice theorists, but FairVote almost-certainly falls under WP:PARTISAN and wouldn't be considered a WP:RS. –Sincerely, A Lime 22:12, 28 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We can use a news source instead of FairVote. Additionally, saying “it generated discussion” summarizes something that happened as a result of the election (the discussion), as opposed to just presenting one opinion as if Wikipedia believes it. Stormy160 (talk) 22:14, 28 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but the mathematical pathologies weren't "discussion"—they're mathematical facts. We can see that subtracting 5% from Republicans' vote totals would have led to Begich winning, and we can also see that most ballots preferred Begich to Peltola (and an overwhelming majority preferred Begich to Palin). –Sincerely, A Lime 22:20, 28 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
First of all, that’s based off of one analysis that is based on a survey it’s not a set in stone fact. Second, plenty would argue that it doesn’t matter if the majority preferred Begich because they didn’t express that in the first round. I don’t personally care in this instance which is correct or more mathematical but you can’t just bash the system. Stormy160 (talk) 22:23, 28 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's not based on a survey, it's based on the cast vote records, i.e. the actual ballots. On ~52% of ballots, Begich was ranked higher than Peltola (and on ~60% he was ranked higher than Palin). This is the Condorcet matrix you can see at the bottom. It's not based on polling (though polls also confirm this). I believe I gave 3 citations, but if you want I can add more, since the analysis has been replicated a few times in different papers. (I just think it'd be overkill.)
I'm not also not "bashing the system". I'm pointing out that A) social choice theorists criticized this result (they did) and B) explaining why they criticized it.
Second, plenty would argue that it doesn’t matter if the majority preferred Begich because they didn’t express that in the first round.
I'm sure some people would; the argument that only the first-round preferences matter is basically the argument for first-past-the-post and all of its variants (including sequential loser plurality). I'm not sure how it would fit in here, though, because that sounds like an opinion. (Assuming I understand what you mean; preferences aren't expressed in rounds, they're expressed as soon as you cast your ballot). Still, that doesn't change the fact that social choice theorists criticized it for the reasons I laid out. –Sincerely, A Lime 22:42, 28 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's actually not what I was thinking, I was actually referring to the argument that rewarding second and third place votes in the first round disincentivizes people to put a second or third choice since it could hurt their first choice. But there you go, more proof that there are many angles to this. The latest version is an improvement but it still needs to be framed as a summary of the discussion created by this election, not as an opinion. It still reads very negative, and IRV is not a common acronym it should just be referred to as "ranked-choice voting" because this is what most people think of when they think of ranked-choice voting. 108.30.55.246 (talk) 01:03, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Also, there are some questionable things in there. You cannot say that a majority were opposed to Peltola is factual because she got a majority in the final round. Palin being a spoiler is a valid but debatable argument, but that doesn't automatically mean that every Begich voter who put Peltola second did it despite their disapproval. That's why I put it in terms of favorability ratings instead. And plurality voting with partisan primaries still would've most likely produced a Peltola vs Palin matchup. I also don't understand the last bit about voters who put Peltola last - that has no effect on the election. Stormy160 (talk) 01:10, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also, there are some questionable things in there. You cannot say that a majority were opposed to Peltola is factual because she got a majority in the final round.

Opposition refers to number of voters who would prefer some other candidate in one-on-one match; idea of a "final round" is a bit of an illusion (in IRV there are no rounds, it all happens simultaneously; "simulated runoff voting" would've been a better name). You can create a fake "majority" in a final round for any candidate, by eliminating all the popular candidates in early rounds; this is why standard definition of opposition in social choice is to take the worst-case opposition.

That's actually not what I was thinking, I was actually referring to the argument that rewarding second and third place votes in the first round disincentivizes people to put a second or third choice since it could hurt their first choice.

I'm not sure how that's related here, though I'll note (as discussed at later-no-harm criterion) that failing to reward 2nd/3rd place votes in the 1st round can also disincentivize putting them down. (Like here—for Palin voters, the 2nd preferences had no effect on the election and did not help Begich, so no reason to waste time ranking anyone besides Palin. So, many voters don't bother—30% in typical election I think.)

The latest version is an improvement but it still needs to be framed as a summary of the discussion created by this election, not as an opinion. It still reads very negative

I think it would be very hard to find positive commentary on this from any experts (social choice theorists). The commentary was all negative because this is the kind of race where IRV and FPP do very poorly, called a center squeeze. In polarized electorate, both systems tend to elect "extremists"—in quotes because Peltola is very moderate, but in low-turnout Alaska race, electorate is so conservative she might as well be communist. :p The median voter and majority went for Begich here, but he lost because the vote was split with Palin.

and IRV is not a common acronym it should just be referred to as "ranked-choice voting" because this is what most people think of when they think of ranked-choice voting.

Wikipedia still uses instant-runoff voting, since ranked choice voting is ambiguous and bit of misnomer. The IRV page notes sources discourage the term RCV because it . It also tricks people into thinking IRV is like other ranked voting methods (Condorcet methods), when it shares most of its properties and "flavor" with FPP (e.g. fails the median voter theorem).

And plurality voting with partisan primaries still would've most likely produced a Peltola vs Palin matchup.

Yep, that's correct. Criticisms of IRV from social choice theorists boil down to "doesn't go far enough". IRV falls in the same broad family of voting systems as FPP. Has all the same properties, e.g. lesser evil voting—for conservative Republicans, the honest vote for Palin let Peltola win (but voting Begich would have elected him).

I also don't understand the last bit about voters who put Peltola last - that has no effect on the election.

Palin voters let Peltola win: Palin eliminates Begich in first round. If not for Palin's supporters, Begich would defeat Peltola. Another way to put it is, if Alaska was more liberal, a Republican would've won the election. See Monotonicity criterion and Participation criterion. These are called negative voting weight events, because your ballot does the exact opposite of what you tell it to. You tell it to support Palin first and Begich second, but instead your ballot elects Peltola. This is what makes voting in IRV complicated or confusing: you can't rank candidates in order of preference, the order you put them on your ballot doesn't correspond with who benefits from your vote. –Sincerely, A Lime 02:50, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, I can tell that you detest ranked-choice voting/IRV. It's an interesting conversation and I'm not trying to dispute your points, but maybe because you are so opinionated it's not your place to be editing this. It is not Wikipedia's job to judge the system. If there was a discussion by others about whether the system worked, Wikipedia can describe what arguments were made. I believe the current version provides a nice survey of experts, pundits, and politicians with a range of views. It is not Wikipedia's place to make its own argument. Stormy160 (talk) 02:58, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not particularly emotionally involved, and I wouldn't really describe myself as detesting the system. It certainly has some advantages. You could even argue this center-squeeze property is good thing because extremists are the most passionate. This was a popular argument for political scientists until ~20 years ago, though it never really caught on in social choice.
I'm just trying to summarize the social choice commentary on this election, which is all very negative because it's a very good example of a center-squeeze. This is just the kind of setup where IRV does poorly (as every ranked system, including FPP, must in some situations). For IRV, that situation is when you have two candidates on the wings with a moderate in between. In other cases like the Maine elections in 2018, IRV did its job perfectly fine by eliminating minor-party spoilers. But with IRV, all the pathologies tend to crop up at once in this kind of race. So if you summarize how IRV performed in the election accurately, it looks almost like you have to be making it up, because everything goes wrong all at once :p
If you are interested in the topic, I recommend Moulin's textbook Axioms of Cooperative Decision Making or Fishburn's The Theory of Social Choice, which will go over all the commentary from voting theorists on this specific class of elections. –Sincerely, A Lime 03:47, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Once again, this is very interesting, but not for this article. Stormy160 (talk) 04:08, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see how discussing things election scientists demonstrated happened under this new system wouldn't be relevant to this article. It would be like trying to remove commentary on the spoiler effect from the 2000 Florida election article.
On your request, I attempted to add contrary commentary by pundits as well. (Though I find its quality or relevance—on both sides—dubious, given their lack of expertise.)
However, my current concern is you keep attempting to replace the verifiable claim that a majority of voters opposed Peltola with the unverified claim that Peltola had a lower favorability rating than Begich (which we cannot determine from the ballots, and which is not stated anywhere in the sources supposedly cited).
What we know for certain is Peltola faced opposition from a majority of voters, under the common definition of opposition in social choice: 52% of voters ranked her either last or tied for last (i.e. a majority least-favorite), and more than half of voters would have opposed her in a runoff with Begich (pairwise opposition). Noting this is not particularly biased. The election did in fact spur substantial criticism of IRV from social choice/voting theorists.
If you can find any examples of positive commentary in a reputable mathematical or social choice journal, I'd be happy to add them. However, I was unable to find any in the usual social choice journals. –Sincerely, A Lime 17:26, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
One cannot say that Peltola lacked majority support because she got it in the final round. It’s simply a false claim. Saying that Begich had a higher favorablity rating strikes a middle ground between that bogus claim and the claim that Begich was closer to the center of opinion, which has merit but is harder to prove. Stormy160 (talk) 00:44, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

RFC: No-show paradox[edit]

Should the article discuss the occurrence of a no-show paradox, up-is-down (monotonicity) paradox, and center-squeeze in this election? –Sincerely, A Lime 18:00, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Closed Limelike Curves: I can't work out what this is about. Have you exhausted WP:RFCBEFORE? Also, |Voting systems is not a valid Rfc category - did you not see the big red error message? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:42, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
(Summoned by bot) Comment - As with Redrose above, I'm not sure what this is referring to, although I'm not the most technical person. Have you discussed the matter with other parties? Bandit Heeler (talk) 23:05, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You can see the talk above, and the most recent version I wrote, before I to try and put an end to the edit war after I got reverted a few times by Stormy160. And yes, very sorry about summoning y'all into a fairly mathematically-heavy discussion 😅
I'm trying to include information and commentary from mathematicians and social choice theorists on Alaska's new version of RCV (Instant-runoff voting), but Stormy160 keeps reverting my edits, referring to them as biased. I tried a few times to come up with a compromise, but it doesn't look likely to happen now so I figured I needed more comments.
The main place I tried to get comments from was in the Voting Systems WikiProject (sorry for misusing the template, I thought I could use a WikiProject as a category!). I think they're the people most likely to have the relevant expertise for this question. –Sincerely, A Lime 23:19, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In short, this election generated a lot of commentary from mathematicians, because it shows a lot of the glitches found in Alaska's particular implementation of RCV. Basically:
1. A majority of voters ranked Begich above Peltola, but Peltola still won. (So Peltola won even though most voters preferred Begich; as the articles I had cited in earlier versions stated, this happened because of a spoiler effect where Palin split the Republican vote by failing to drop out.)
2. If Republican turnout had been lower, i.e. If Republicans got fewer votes, Peltola would have lost to Begich (a no-show paradox).
I think both these facts are important and interesting enough to be included in the article. However, Stormy continues to replace these summaries of the papers I cited with references to Begich having a higher favorability rating. So far as I can tell, this is not at all supported by the papers I cited, which say nothing about favorability ratings. The papers are exclusively about the no-show paradox and majority-reversal paradoxes in the election. –Sincerely, A Lime 23:29, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I’ve reviewed the discussion above (more heat than light, I’m afraid) and the recent edit history. Suffice it to say that I believe the inclusion of information on the no-show paradox, monotonicity paradox, and center-squeeze would be beneficial. I don’t believe it’s appropriate that this information is removed from the article.
I’m going to edit the article and hope that the editors can behave and work out a better version of the article from here. I don’t want to have to protect the article; we can be civil. In particular, Stormy, if you have information showing beneficial aspects of IRV as concern this election, by all means add them in. (I’m not even too worried about sourcing; if some good aspect of IRV was apparent in this election, a paper describing the effect itself without reference to this election would be fine with me, as long as its application falls within WP:CALC.)
CRGreathouse (t | c) 01:21, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As I’ve said all along my problem was never providing information on those concepts, it’s the use of a Wikipedia article to argue a certain perspective. I strongly feel it should be framed as “the election generated discussion on instant runoff voting” because that’s neutral language that doesn’t suggest anything. And that’s why I added in what others said about voters crossing partisan lines by voting Begich first and Peltola second. That way there is a survey of the resulting discussion as opposed to just one side. That cannot just be discredited, that’s a clear instance of bias. I condensed the mathematical stuff only for clarity so that the lede isn’t too long and technical, I tried to keep the point being made the same as before. Stormy160 (talk) 01:30, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think that's a reasonable goal. However, the newer versions didn't accurately summarize the main objections experts raised to IRV in this race, which were:
  1. Peltola won with a minority of the vote—52% of voters preferred Begich to Peltola, and a similar number (52%) refused to support her in the final round.
  2. Palin spoiled the election, by knocking out the majority-preferred winner (Begich).
  3. Begich lost because he got too many votes.
"Generated discussion" feels like an attempt to gloss over some very harsh criticism election scientists gave. "Generated controversy" seems like an accurate and neutral description. (Many people were definitely upset about the outcome!) I made some efforts to compromise on this by including commentary by politicians or pundits, although it feels like the result was to make the lead a bit bloated. However, WP:NPOV doesn't mandate equal coverage of both sides of a discussion: it requires coverage to reflect the views of experts in the field and other WP:Reliable Sources. In this case, while many political commentators offered some kind of spin on the election, the consensus of academics was that this election went very badly for IRV. That doesn't mean IRV is worse than FPP or traditional primaries, or that IRV is bad across all elections. However, it does mean the Wikipedia article for this particular election has to reflect that consensus. –Sincerely, A Lime 02:42, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Based on what is sourced, I don't think the criticism is that harsh. Peltola was also a moderate candidate, I don't think anyone argues that she is that far off from the median voter. I also think discussion is the right word, because controversy kind of implies notoriety. Sure, there were some comments made particularly by Republicans about the outcome, but I don't think this was some widespread thing that many people talked about. It was something discussed by a group of academics, who provided criticism. It was also discussed by others with a mix of praise and critique. And finally, my aim wasn't balanced coverage per say (there is more criticism than praise in there), just a neutral survey of what was said. Stormy160 (talk) 03:11, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
See, the discussion wasn’t about whether these concepts should be in the article. It was about not letting one’s opinion be the driving force behind the text. Lime’s edits painted an overwhelmingly negative view of instant runoff voting that wasn’t encyclopedic, and any mention of something positive about it (such as Yang’s commentary, which I added in) was immediately followed by something meant to discredit it. Again, I have no issue with introducing mathematical concepts in an easy to read way, but the purpose of this article is to summarize this particular election, not to formulate an opinion on instant runoff voting. The election generated discussion on the efficacy of the system, and that’s something worth noting because it’s a direct result of this election. But we should not be turning this into an opinion piece or one sided analysis. Also, center squeeze is already mentioned in the current version of this article, and it provides a link to the relevant page so that we don’t have to delve into all the details. This page already applies the theory to this specific election by labeling Palin as the spoiler. Stormy160 (talk)

RFC: Majority opposition[edit]

Is it correct to refer to Peltola as having majority opposition, on the basis of having a majority of voters opposed in a runoff with Begich; as well as being left either unranked or ranked last on a majority of ballots? –Sincerely, A Lime 18:02, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Same as above. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:10, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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