[EM] Richie/FairVote offer fix to Top Two primary, now let's offer to fix RCV!

[David L Wetzell]

Well, if the number of candidates is low in the 2nd round, 4, and at least
one is likely a light-weight then I doubt it'd be a lot better with a diff
system.  The real issue is whether having 4 winners in the first round will
improve turnout and fix the conservative bias shown in the first round.
 I'm presuming they're going to go with the top 4 vote-getters being the
finalists for now.  That's porbably not absolutely terrible if you can
eliminate clones in other ways.  I know Richie doesn't think Approval
Voting would work for the 1st round and maybe they're just holding off on
moving out an idea for the 1st round to market their key tweak to the
top-two primary.

As for MAV/MCV/SODA, as I understand it, FairVote et al are driven by
marketing considerations.  They've sunk a lot of marketing into IRV/RCV,
the rise in interest in top two primary by heavy-weights "independents",
opens up the chance for FairVote to adapt their product to the new avenue
for demand w.o. seemingly jettisoning their previous spiel.  This is an
alternative fix to my fix to how IRV can get unwieldy with lots of
candidates.

So I'm resigned to being a bit-player in the world of electoral reform, I
defend the status quo because I really am skeptical about the number of
competitive candidates growing a lot and am thereby skeptical about there
being a lot of value added to improving on IRV, whereas the scope for
muddying the waters and dividing and conquering electoral reform activists
is considerable.

My big disappointment is that Richie thinks its unreasonable to argue that
the decision to use single-member or multi-member elections for
congress-persons is a federal matter, not a matter of states' rights as I
wanted to argue.  The judicial circuit is not a great one, he didn't say it
couldn't happen, but my interp is that he's less excited about the prospect
of pushing for Am. forms of PR.  The Dems don't want it because they want
to dominate.  The Pubs don't want it because it wd be tantamount to
agreeing to become a somewhat more fiscally conservative version of the
Democratic party of yore.    The #OWSers have too much an anarchist flare
that doesn't believe in election reform period.  The tea-partiers are
electoral fundies who, not unlike most US_Americans, don't appreciate the
scope and need for experimentation in democracy.

And so I'll do my bit, but I'm waiting for some heavy weight
center-right-ish person to see the need for Am forms of PR in the wake of
the GOP civil war between the establishmentarians, the libertarian/RPaul
activists and the RRight/CDU-like activists pulling in opposite directions.

dlw

dlw


On Sat, Jun 22, 2013 at 1:54 PM, Jameson Quinn <jameson.quinn at gmail.com>wrote:

> This is a good idea, but it would be even better if you used a better
> voting system for the second round. In this case, approval or score would
> be adequate, but MAV or MCA would be better. If I'm going to dream, then
> SODA would be even better.
>
> I know, David, that you value working hand-in-hand with FairVote pretty
> highly. And I know that they have objections to approval and score,
> objections with which I disagree but which are not entirely without logic.
> But from my discussions with Richie, none of his root objections would
> apply to a Bucklin system like MAV or MCV or to a delegated one like SODA.
> If you think he'd listen to you, I'd be happy to patiently explain my
> arguments there, so you could pass them on.
>
> Jameson
>
> 2013/6/22 David L Wetzell <wetzelld at gmail.com>
>
>> Rob emailed me today sharing this article.
>>
>> http://www.fairvote.org/fairvote-s-fix-for-top-two-in-california#.UcXGAPmNpsl
>>
>> The idea is to pick 4 in t he first round and then use rank-choice voting
>> in the final round with only four candidates, which is another way to keep
>> down the amount of time spent on rcv elections.
>>
>> It seems they're trying to coopt the top two primary momentum.
>> dlw
>>
>> ----
>> Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list
>> info
>>
>>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/attachments/20130622/b82f2f37/attachment-0003.htm>