[EM] Fwd: how goes American PR?

[David L Wetzell]

On Sat, Dec 3, 2011 at 2:37 PM, Jan Kok <jan.kok.5y at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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.
>

Aye, but when we're fighting against $peech, we gotta pick our battles and
it makes sense to focus more on areas of agreement.

>
> 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.
>

Yes, it's big, but a lot of the problems in the US stem more from the
tendency of our system to tilt to effective single-party rule.
This makes it hard for the president to be more presidential, since (s)he
gets dragged into party-politics that are not amenable to compromise.

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

dlw: It's hard enuf right not to get a National Popular Vote.  Do you
really think that replacing FPTP for the Prez election is anywhere near
feasible?  It's not good activism not to prioritize the lower hanging
fruits, even if there's a really luscious one way up there.

>
> IRV/RCV is a poor method. It can make poor choices of winners, such as
> in the 2009 Burlington, VT mayor's race,


That is contested.


> and is more complicated than
> other methods.


That is contested.  Condorcet is more complicated if you gotta deal with
when there's no CW, which is more likely when folks don't rank all of the
candidates, leading to very many ties.

> 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 And when IRV gets rejected or repealed, as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.
>

dlw: If we used a 2-stage approach, what I've been calling IRV3/AV3, we
could simplify it quite a bit and solve other problems.  So I see IRV as
quite fixable.

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

dlw: as you wish.

dlw

>
> - 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
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> > "Respect for Every Vote and Every Voice"
> >
> > Rob Richie
> > Executive Director
> >
> > FairVote
> > 6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 610
> > Takoma Park, MD 20912
> > www.fairvote.org  rr at fairvote.org
> > (301) 270-4616
> >
> > Please support FairVote through action and tax-deductible donations --
> see
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> gift
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> >
> >
> >
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