<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 12:01 PM, Jameson Quinn <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jameson.quinn@gmail.com" target="_blank">jameson.quinn@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
JQ:Unfortunately, I think it's hard to build a national or even a local movement for a complicated, multi-step reform plan. You have to be able to say what you want in about four words, tops.</blockquote><div><br></div>
<div>dlw: It helps if you use alliteration or variations on existing slogans...God Bless(We Need) American Proportional Representation(PR)! </div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
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<div>Plan A:</div>
<div>1. Local elections using PR. ("But I don't care about local elections...")</div></blockquote><div>Re: that's cuz they're (almost) never competitive. </div><div>The reason why is because we don't use PR. </div>
<div>If we use PR, it will make them competitive, which will make us care about them and it will help in lots of ways.... (increased local activism, where we're more effective....and so on...)</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div>2. Increases power of third parties ("But I don't care about third parties...")</div></blockquote><div>Alternatives: (start with) Handicap major party rivalry (End Incentive for Grid-Lock) or Give third parties a role/part-to-play/chance or "Let us Play Coy (Politically)"</div>
<div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div>3. More spoiled or near-spoiled elections increase pressure for single-winner reform ("Huh?")</div>
</blockquote><div>Alternative: Meaningful Multi-seat elections mean More Voices. More voices means more reforms, including electoral reforms. </div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div>4. Single-winner reform implemented ("But IRV was the wrong reform, we should have gone for system X")</div></blockquote><div>Re: With IRV, there'll be room for more than one electoral reform at a time!</div>
<div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div>[JQ]6. One day, we have a competitive, more-than-two-way race for representative, senator, president, or mayor</div>
<div>7. Corruption withers.</div><div><br></div><div>See how many people you lose before you get to steps 6 and 7?[/JQ]</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>dlw: Not as many as you all tend to lose when you talk about your alphabet soups of characteristics of single-winner election rules. </div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div><br></div><div>JQ:I think this works better:</div><div>Plan B:</div><div>1. Empower a commission (like the one in Rhode Island now... which hasn't been constituted yet although it was supposed to start working in September) to pick a good single-winner system.</div>
</blockquote><div>[/endquote]</div><div><br></div><div>how is this commission "empowered" and how do they pick the criterion that is decisive for picking a good single-winner system? </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div> </div></blockquote><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div>2. Use that system at all levels.</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>dlw:That's 6 words.</div><div><br></div><div>dlw: But one election rule doesn't fit all elections so this undercuts the deeper need for electoral pluralism! And it's too damn easy to get some smart person who understands electoral analytics to find something to make any election rule look bad. </div>
<div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div>3a. Increases pressure for PR reform</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>dlw:You gotta get folks first to swallow the super-rule. There is precedent for election reforms getting reversed, and not just with IRV!!! </div>
<div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div>3b. All races more competitive</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>dlw: Start at the top, after changing every election, and then PR? But the whole point is that the partial/strategic use of PR gives us more bang than some mythical single-winner reform that has yet to be tried out much in political elections. </div>
<div>dlw: I may not my idea packaged [yet] for general consumption, but that doesn't mean I'm not generally right...</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div>4. Corruption withers</div></blockquote><div>dlw:Age of Aquarius begins. </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div><br></div><div>JQ:My point is not that single-winner reform is more important or easier than PR reform, but that if either one will lead to the other, we should start with the one that can apply to all races initially, not the one which is limited in scope. It appeals to people who only care about the top of the ticket, and it does not lead to the disruptive and temporarily-counterproductive step 3 of plan A.</div>
</blockquote><div><br></div><div>dlw:"if" either one will lead to the other. </div><div>Experience has not suggested that we're going to agree on one election rule as inherently superior so that it should be implemented in all elections. I for one would argue against such, saying that election rules are like screw-driver, no one works well for all elections. But even if we did somehow come to agreement, we'd still need to make the change one election at a time, rather than to all elections at once. That's political science fiction. There's precedent in the US for getting PR adopted in "more local" elections, as there's precedent for stalwarts using smoke and mirrors to subvert electoral reform. </div>
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<div><br></div><div>JQ:Anyway, that's why I prefer something like plan B. Obviously on the whole what we need are different people starting out with different plans, and also ready to support any plan that starts working. So I'm not telling anyone to stop doing what they're doing, just giving my own thoughts.</div>
</blockquote><div><br></div><div>dlw: The push for American forms of PR is going to begin soon, it's a good time to get prepared to make it a success! </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div><br></div><div>Jameson</div><div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div><div>2011/11/17 David L Wetzell <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:wetzelld@gmail.com" target="_blank">wetzelld@gmail.com</a>></span><br>
</div></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div><div>
Since my reply is long, I thought I'd share the last bit separately, here.<div><br></div><div><div style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-size:13px">KM:However, even if we wanted to choose that strategy[pushing hard for PR in US/State representative elections and city council elections], those who organize voting might at any point ask "well, what of single-winner elections?". Then we can say "pick Approval, Schulze (e.g.), MJ or Range; authorities X, Y, Z, think they're all pretty good". We just have to get X, Y, and Z to sign. </span><span style="font-size:13px">If some local governments try any of them and find out that, say, MJ is good enough, then we can later say "X, Y, Z think they're all pretty good, and [county W] says they've had good experience with MJ".</span><br style="font-size:13px">
[endquote]<br style="font-size:13px">dlw: Why not say, "the use of PR in 'more local' elections(like the above) will create a greater ability for third parties to spoil 'less local' single-winner elections, thereby increasing the demand for single-winner election reform. Right now, the plurality of support among electoral reform activists is for the use of a form of IRV to replace FPTP. We think that will change later down the road, since there are other options, but we'd rather just stay united in pushing hard for American forms of PR than cause dissent over an issue that is secondary in importance. </div>
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dlw</div></font></span></div>
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