[EM] The art of the possible, & request for info

[John B. Hodges]

Greetings- In the past few days I've noticed that the folks at 
www.fairvote.org, the Center for Voting and Democracy, are not only 
pushing IRV as a political reform here in the U.S., but also have 
begun pushing for cumulative voting in 3-seat "superdistricts". 
(Cumulative voting is where you have one vote per open seat, i.e. in 
this proposal 3 votes, and you can allocate them among the candidates 
however you wish; 2 for one and 1 for another, all 3 for one, or one 
each for your favorite three candidates.)

These guys are much more focused on political action than on academic 
argument; they want to get some reforms enacted. From that standpoint 
I can see their view. Both IRV and Cumulative voting in 3-seat 
districts have an actual history of use, in real elections in real 
countries, so no one can say they are flaky ideas. Both are 
improvements over plurality in single-seat districts. Both are simple 
enough to explain to busy non-academics, who wouldn't hold still for 
talk of "monotonicity" or "Condorcet-efficiency". Neither requires a 
supercomputer to make a few billion calculations for each voter's 
ballot.

Futhermore with these two reforms it may be possible to enlist the 
support of the Democratic Party, precisely because neither seriously 
challenges the two-party system. IRV might do so, conceptually, in 
the long run, but not if the experience of Australia is any guide. 
Cumulative voting lowers the threshold for winning a seat, but not by 
much; new parties would still face very high hurdles. Both, arguably, 
would improve the future prospects for the Democrats, given that the 
Republicans are agressively seeking to establish one-party dominance, 
as has been seen historically in India and in the American South.

IMHO, I'd prefer a system that allowed the growth of four, five, 
seven parties, so that "every voter would be a swing voter." In other 
words, party-list Proportional Representation.
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Greetings again. Recent discussion about strategy in Approval Voting 
makes me wish to read the original articles; can anyone give me a 
reference for the articles analysing the effects of (results of) 
following different startegies in AV? Much thanks- JBH
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John B. Hodges, jbhodges@   @usit.net
The two-party system is obsolete and dysfunctional.
Better forms of democracy: www.fairvote.org
REAL CHOICES, NEW VOICES, by Douglas J. Amy