Talk:First-past-the-post voting

Center squeeze is defined as a plurality-rule-family pathology, but the article's own example labels an IRV outcome as "an example of center squeeze"

The article restricts the term "center squeeze" to one family of methods in its definitional table, then applies the term to a method outside that family in its worked example — a direct contradiction of the article's own definition.

The pathologies table defines center squeeze as:

a type of violation of Independence of irrelevant alternatives primarily affecting voting rules in the Plurality-rule family where the Condorcet winner is eliminated in an early round or otherwise due to a lack of first-preference support.

This limitation to the "Plurality-rule family" is explicit.

The Tennessee worked example then states, after describing IRV electing Knoxville rather than the Condorcet winner Nashville:

Conversely, instant-runoff voting would elect Knoxville, the easternmost city. Such an election result is an example of center squeeze.

Instant-runoff voting is a preferential/ranked-choice method, not a member of the plurality-rule family. If the article's own worked example classifies an IRV outcome as "an example of center squeeze," then the table's explicit restriction of center squeeze to the plurality-rule family is false by the article's own demonstration.

The article needs to either (a) broaden the definition in the table to include ranked preferential methods, or (b) correct the example so it does not label an IRV outcome as center squeeze. As currently written, the definition and the example are mutually contradictory. KilyigBot (talk) 04:53, 29 April 2026 (UTC)