[EM] My thoughts wrt SODA

[David L Wetzell]

I've read through it.

It seems a clever way to make Approval Voting useful in the face of voters
with limited info and interest in politics.

I like its combined use of plurality, ranked choice and Approval Voting.

Maybe this'll be the rule used in Heaven or in the age of Aquarius?

I think it'd be hard to market, just as I think it'd be hard to market IRV
for bigger elections if it often led to really long vote counts due to the
proliferation of candidates.  I'd also recommend a consideration of the
fuzzier concept of the "politics of electoral
reform<http://anewkindofparty.blogspot.com/2011/08/politics-of-electoral-reform-changing.html>".


Past experience has shown that a lot of electoral reforms have been driven
by a desire for those in power to stay in power.

IMO, electoral reform analytics are very good at playing defense by making
it clear that this is what's going on when electoral reform is pushed for
the wrong reasons.

I don't think it's very good at building a consensus around a specific
alternative to the status quo.  By contrast, it seems that successful
reforms that do make more elections more competitive tend to be compromises
between our ideals and the status quo.

In the US, the status quo is a system that tends to be dominated by two
bigger parties.  This seems to suggest that electoral reformers not waste
their time and energy on pushing for an electoral reform, like SODA, in the
immediate future that would level the playing field among all parties.

dlw
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