[EM] Re: IRV bill on Washington State Governor's desk

[Russ Paielli]

Araucaria Araucana araucaria.araucana-at-gmail.com |EMlist| wrote:
> On 16 Apr 2005 at 20:04 UTC-0700, James Green-Armytage wrote:
> 
>>Hi Ted, That's pretty interesting. I think that the direct link to the bill is
>>here:
>>http://www.leg.wa.gov/wsladm/billinfo1/dspBillSummary.cfm?billnumber=1447&year=2005
>>http://www.leg.wa.gov/pub/billinfo/2005-06/Htm/Bills/House%20Bills/1447.htm
>>	It looks to me like it is quite specific to IRV. The title of the bill is
>>"Establishing a pilot project to examine the use of instant runoff voting
>>for nonpartisan offices."
> 
> 
> I sent a message to the legislator.  He said it took him 6 years to
> get this small little bill passed so that Vancouver, Washington's
> charter amendment (of 1998? 99?) would become legal, and he was tired
> of attempting to get the rest of the house to understand what he
> wanted to do.  He wished me luck with alternatives.

Ted,

Thanks for this little dose of reality. I see that this bill simply sets 
up a *study* of *IRV* for *non-partisan* offices, and it took six years 
to get this far (not yet signed into law)!

That should give the people on this forum a clue about how difficult it 
will be to sell their favorite methods. And that's why I've tried to 
emphasize simplicity.

Actually, as simple as DMC/RAV is, it may still be too complicated for 
public acceptance within, say, the next 20 or 30 years. If so, I guess 
we're left with Approval.

The one thing we can be absolutely, 100% sure about is that the issue of 
Condorcet margins vs. wv will *not* be a significant public issue 
anytime within the next 1,000 years!

--Russ