[EM] Has this idea been considered?

[Andrew Myers]

On 7/7/11 3:54 PM, Russ Paielli wrote:
> Let me just elaborate on my concerns about complexity. Most of you 
> probably know most of this already, but let me just try to summ it up 
> and put things in perspective.
>
> Some of the participants on this list are advanced mathematicians, and 
> they have been discussing these matters for years. As you all know, 
> the topic of election methods and voting systems can get very 
> complicated. As far as I know, there is still no consensus even on 
> this list on what is the best system. If there is no consensus here, 
> how can you expect to get a consensus among the general public?
> ...
> So let's say we somehow manage to get widespread public awareness of 
> the deficiencies of the current plurality system. Then what? 
> Eventually, and actual change has to go through Congress. Try to 
> imagine Senator Blowhard grilling the experts on the proposed rules of 
> their favorite system. It would certainly be good for one thing: 
> fodder for Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert!
> ...
> I wish there were a good, viable solution, but I just don't see it 
> happening in the foreseeable future.
>
> --Russ P.
Russ, I think you might be too focused on US presidential elections.  
Changing that will take a long time and it is not the place to start. 
There are lots of other kinds of elections that are also important and 
where it will be easier to make a change -- will not require a 
constitutional amendment, for starters. Party primaries seem like one 
possibility. I think that the way to make the change at the top level is 
first to get voters aware of and used to ranked-choice voting. That is 
why I implemented CIVS, for use by organizations at all scales.

The specific details of what Condorcet completion method is used are not 
that important, I think.  Many voters don't know or care how the 
electoral college works, despite 200+ years of its use. And the 
reasonable Condorcet variations are not more broken than the electoral 
college! Voters just need time to become comfortable with ranking 
choices instead of picking one.

If you want to try CIVS out, by the way, I happen to be looking for 
feedback on a good book to use for a college freshman reading project, at:

http://www.cs.cornell.edu/w8/~andru/cgi-perl/civs/vote.pl?id=E_6d3db58589520629&akey=77b16251195da930

Cheers,

-- Andrew
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