[EM] publicly acceptability of election methods

[James Green-Armytage]

Russ,
	Eric is entirely right. STV is more complicated than almost any Condorcet
method (including cardinal pairwise), and yet it is and has been used for
public elections in several cities and nations. This is a good piece of
evidence that voting rule complexity can be accepted if it serves a clear
function.

>As far as I know, STV is a generalization of IRV for multi-winner 
>elections. 

	Actually IRV is the single-winner version of STV, which leaves out a lot
of its essential features. 
	The rules of STV are worth learning, if you don't know them.
http://fc.antioch.edu/~james_green-armytage/voting_methods/introduction.htm#stv
http://fc.antioch.edu/~james_green-armytage/voting_methods/survey.htm#stv
http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/votingsystems/systems3.htm
http://fairvote.org/pr/whatis.htm#choice

>So the reasons for IRV's popularity apply to STV to some 
>extent. Yes, STV is more complicated than IRV, but I think people tend 
>to be more open to complexity for multi-winner elections because there 
>is perhaps no way to achieve proportional representation without it. For 
>single-winner elections PR doesn't apply and they expect simpler 
>election rules.
>
	Party list is much simpler than STV, and it achieves proportional
representation. However, although STV is more complex than party list, the
added complexity serves a clear purpose, i.e., it enables proportional
representation where people vote directly for candidates instead of
parties.
	Single non-transferable vote is also much simpler than STV, but again,
STV serves a clear purpose: it creates proportionality without the need
for intensive outside coordination.
	Americans have accepted STV for public elections several times in
history. Probably you know that STV was used in several American cities,
including New York City, early in the 20th century. 
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/articles/Brief%20History%20of%20PR.htm
	It is still being used in Cambridge, MA (home of Harvard University). It
might come up for a vote sometime soon in Davis, CA.

	To sum up, simpler systems are better than complex ones when all else is
equal, but when the features that add complexity fulfill well-defined
functions, the more complex systems have a chance to be accepted.

my best,
James