[EM] Re et al Chicken and Egg

[Kristofer Munsterhjelm]

And an addendum I forgot first time around. I hope this won't distract 
you from the other post.

On 12/21/2011 05:10 AM, David L Wetzell wrote:

> Let me add RBJ that I really do appreciate your comments in response to
> Kathy Dodd.  I would add that if the GOP/Prog Haters cd go back in time
> to the '09 election then IRV would have worked better because more of
> them would have voted strategically for the Dem candidate as their first
> ranked choice.  So I'd say 2009 was a learning election....  and I have
> no problems whatsoever with some still having to vote strategically.  I
> see this as a consequence of how IRV retains a tendency for there to be
> 2 major parties.  What it does is makes it so those 2 major parties are
> more dynamically drawn to be centered around the shifting de facto center.

It's Dopp.

Also, let me see if I got this right. You're saying that instead of 
having potentially direct multiparty rule by the use of an advanced 
method (or at least, no worse a rule than under IRV), you want to have 
two-party rule. You want to use a method that behaves strangely in 
certain situations, and you want the voters to take up the burden of 
making it behave properly by having them vote strategically.

So instead of a rule where people could vote mostly-honestly and could 
possibly get multipartyism directly, you want something where people 
still have to vote strategically and won't get anything more than 
(possibly contested) two-party rule even when they do. And why? Because 
all the momentum's with IRV?

Doesn't that sound a bit bizarre? "I know of a voting method where you 
could vote honestly, but because FairVote got to IRV first, you'll just 
have to pinch your nose and vote strategically under IRV instead". Do 
you think that argument would go over well with the voters?

Why should we expect the voters to jump through hoops when electoral 
reform is supposed to remove the need to jump through hoops? I could 
understand your tradeoff if all that jumping through hoops gives you 
something (e.g. multipartyism) the other rules don't, but IRV doesn't 
even give you that.