[EM] Fwd: how goes American PR?

[Jan Kok]

If Richie/FairVote wants to focus their energy on pushing proportional
representation, that's wonderful! I personally won't "quibble" about
PR methods, and will support and vote for pretty much any PR method.

However, there will always be a need for single-winner methods, for
single-winner offices such as president, governor and mayor.

The US President's power is huge. He can veto bills passed by
Congress, and he can start wars. And now, de facto, can even order
assassinations of US citizens.

So, it's important that we have good single-winner election methods to
make the best possible choices of winners for single-winner offices.

IRV/RCV is a poor method. It can make poor choices of winners, such as
in the 2009 Burlington, VT mayor's race, and is more complicated than
other methods. The complexity makes it difficult to sell to voters,
some of whom are _extremely_ resistant to change. The complexity also
makes it more expensive to count the votes, and makes IRV elections
more vulnerable to fraud. And when IRV gets rejected or repealed, as
it has in several places, it poisons the well, making it harder to
introduce other, better voting methods.

So, as long as there are people pushing IRV, let the quibbling (about
single-winner methods) continue!

- Jan


On Sat, Dec 3, 2011 at 10:09 AM, David L Wetzell <wetzelld at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> American PR is a coming.  You must decide if you want to keep quibbling over
> the best single-winner election rule or push hard for a better mix of multi
> and single-winner election rules in the US.
>
> dlw
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Rob Richie <rr at fairvote.org>
> Date: Sat, Dec 3, 2011 at 11:05 AM
> Subject: Re: how goes American PR?
> To: David L Wetzell <wetzelld at gmail.com>
>
>
> A little slow in getting our American PR-like plans drawn, but we'll have
> them done for hte whole country in early 2012 and heat up in our outreach...
> getting some related opeds.
>
> Next year should be a good one for the idea --  lots of chances to talk
> about it.
> Rob
>
>
> On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 12:26 PM, David L Wetzell <wetzelld at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>>
>> I wonder if tea-partiers unhappy w. the Republican party might get in on
>> it?
>>
>> dlw
>
>
>
>
> --
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> Rob Richie
> Executive Director
>
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