But note, third and finally, that nothing here entails that all electoral methods must be equally fair or that there can be no fair method. That, anyway, is my own understanding, ... True, there can be no fair method that will be free in all circumstances of the sort of occasional anomalies I've illustrated above. However, I don't see why Arrow's Theorem would prevent us from adjudicating on grounds of fairness between a one-person-one-vote system and, say, a system that awarded more votes to the rich than to the poor. Again, one argument for proportional systems is that it's unfair for a party obtaining 25% of the popular vote to have only 5% representation in the legislative assembly. Whatever counter-arguments there may be to this, I don't see how Arrow's Theorem rules out judgements of comparative fairness.
The conclusion of a post by Norman Geras on AV. This is the point isn't it? First past the post allegedly gives certainty of outcomes (it doesn't) but it isn't even remotely fair. AV may not be perfect, but what is?
Two other good posts about AV
AV, status quo bias and definitions
Is AV better than fptp? (long but very informative)
I particularly liked this quote from the second post:
1. Under AV the person who comes second or third can win.
I find this argument laughable. The truth that the above sentence expresses is that under AV the person who would have come first under FPTP will not always win. Well I’ll be: it turns out that AV and FPTP do not lead to identical results. So that is why we are having a referendum. Duh.
