[EM] Better Choices for Democracy

[Michael Garman]

Good luck to you, my friend. You can keep whining till you’re blue in the
face, but it’s not going to get you anywhere. If you spent a tenth as much
time on movement building as you do moaning about FV you might have won
something once.

On Sat, Jun 21, 2025 at 3:45 PM robert bristow-johnson via Election-Methods
<election-methods at lists.electorama.com> wrote:

>
>
> > On 06/21/2025 12:34 PM EDT Michael Garman <michael.garman at rankthevote.us>
> wrote:
> >
> >
> > If you don’t like the strategy, come up with a better one. Fight fire
> with fire, not with emails to a list read by the ivory tower set.
> >
>
> The better strategy is telling the truth.
>
> Condorcet came up with a better method than Hare.  He did it a half
> century before Hare.
>
> But, like Trump, you're saying that better marketing means that it's a
> better product.
>
> I'm saying that the fundamental principles of democracy are more important.
>
> When I critique FairVote (would this be fighting fire with fire?) they
> respond with the falsehood that I am anti-RCV or that I am harming the
> movement or, at the least, that I am making perfection be the enemy of the
> good.
>
> If we're gonna "correct" First-Past-The-Post, let's make sure that the
> correction itself is as correct as it can possibly be.  That means, in all
> contingencies where this is possible (I acknowledge the existence of
> Arrow's theorem and of the Condorcet paradox), that we must **always**
> value our votes equally.  RankTheVote and FairVote don't believe that.
> RankTheVote and FairVote say that in the cases of Alaska 2022 (August) and
> Burlington 2009, we should *not* value our votes equally.
>
> All sorts of good, bad, and half-baked organizations and movements get
> proficient at marketing their good, bad, or half-baked ideas.  Standing on
> the success of your marketing does not mean you're doing the world any good.
>
> --
>
> r b-j . _ . _ . _ . _ rbj at audioimagination.com
>
> "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
> --
>
> r b-j . _ . _ . _ . _ rbj at audioimagination.com
>
> "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
>
> .
> .
> .
> ----
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> info
>
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