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The historical perspective by Abd ul-Rahman Lomax posted by Richard
Fobes has a number of inaccuracies. It is apparently a "top of the
head" summary based on memories of what others, including myself,
had written several years ago.<br>
<br>
The organization now named FairVote began with a two-day organizing
meeting (not a conference) of about 75 people held in Cincinnati in
the spring of 1992. Its initial name was Citizens [not Center] for
Proportional Representation, with an exclamation point intentionally
included with its acronym (CPR!). The name was changed a year or so
later to Center for Voting and Democracy (CVD), then 10 or so years
after that to FairVote.<br>
<br>
Virtually the entire focus of the 1992 meeting was on advocacy of
proportional representation. Single winner voting was discussed very
little. I attended the meeting after having learned about it from
two articles about the need for PR in the US and an
announcement/open invitation published in In These Times magazine.
As I recall, they were written or co-written by Matthew Cossolotto,
the meeting's leading organizer.<br>
<br>
The decision to strongly promote Instant Runoff Voting (a name that
was chosen after a number of other names were used or considered),
was made only several years after the organization was formed. The
main reasons for promoting IRV rather than other single winner
methods were initially political. The thinking was that it would be
much easier to sell, as a logical improvement to familiar,
widely-used runoff elections, than other methods. And in any case,
CVD's leaders regarded single winner reforms as much less important
than proportional representation. IRV was seen as a kind of
"foot-in-the-door" reform that could pave the way to much more
significant PR reforms. I don't think there has ever been much
serious discussion among the organization's leaders about the pros
and cons of IRV and other single winner methods, though I think it's
unfair to suggest, as Abd seems to, that they have been
intentionally deceptive in their arguments favoring IRV.<br>
<br>
In addition, a leading FairVote advocate of IRV (though he first
called it "majority preferential voting") was John Anderson, the
1980 independent presidential candidate. Anderson published a New
York Times op-ed about it in July 1992, shortly after the CPR!
organizing meeting (the url is
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.nytimes.com/1992/07/24/opinion/break-the-political-stranglehold.htmllehold">http://www.nytimes.com/1992/07/24/opinion/break-the-political-stranglehold.htmllehold</a>).
Soon after that he joined the CVD board of directors and has been an
active, influential board member, serving for many years as its
chair (he's now listed as chair emeritus). Although I have no
information about the board's internal deliberations, I suspect the
organization has been more influenced by Anderson and other board
members and less dominated by long-time executive director Rob
Richie than some people have believed.<br>
<br>
My own biggest disagreement with FairVote is that it has never,
itself, been a truly democratic organization. At the 1992 founding
meeting, I was under the impression that it would be incorporated as
a member-controlled organization. In fact an initial board of
directors was elected at the meeting using a PR procedure (STV as I
recall). Only several years later did I learn that the organization
was incorporated as a conventional nonprofit organization controlled
by a self-perpetuating board (i.e., the board chooses all new board
members). The initial board was selected by Matthew Cossolotto and
the other incorporators and was not the board elected at the
founding meeting. As a result of how it was incorporated, the
organization has never been open to pressure from members (since it
doesn't have any) regarding its positions on IRV and other issues. I
initially supported it with a couple of donations, but I'm no longer
a supporter and have been dismayed by its positions on IRV and some
other issues and by its failure to become a democratic membership
organization.<br>
<br>
-Ralph Suter<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 13 Mar 2013 1:16 PDT,
Richard Fobes wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:mailman.170332.1363248404.34820.election-methods-electorama.com@lists.electorama.com"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">For the benefit of those who don't understand why FairVote promotes IRV
(instant-runoff voting) in opposition to many forum participants here,
I'm posting this extract from an excellent, well-written, long message
by Abd.
On 3/13/2013 11:46 AM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite" style="color: #000000;">
<pre wrap=""><span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>...
</pre>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" style="color: #000000;">
<pre wrap=""><span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>Example from the United States: There was a conference in the early
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>1990s to discuss and support proportional representation. A small group
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>of people then formed the Center for Proportional Representation, and
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>leaders appeared. Eventually this because the Center for Voting and
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>Democracy. Early on, this thinking developed among the activists involved:
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">></span>
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>1. The best method for proportinal representation is Single Transferable
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>Vote. (it isn't but that's what they believed, these were not voting
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>systems experts, but political activists.)
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>2. STV requires a complex voting system. Read, expensive to canvass,
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>difficult to audit, etc.
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>3. The single-winner version of STV could substitute, it was thought,
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>for the fairly common runoff voting, which requires, sometimes, a second
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>ballot, which is expensive.
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>4. They invented the name Instant Runoff Voting, then, for single-winner
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>STV, and represented it as equivalent to Runoff Voting. (It isn't, and
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>studies have clearly shown this, but, again, they are coming up with an
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span><b class="moz-txt-star"><span class="moz-txt-tag">*</span>action plan<span class="moz-txt-tag">*</span></b>, something they think they can sell.)
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>5. And so the primary activity of CVD became promoting instant runoff
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>voting.
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">></span>
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>Early on, voting systems experts tapped them on the shoulder and pointed
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>out that, while multiwinner STV is a decent voting system, the
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>single-winner form wasn't, it suffered from some serious problems. They
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>rejected these experts as impractical dreamers. Only their plan, they
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>believed, had any chance of success. And, of course, they, and their
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>Executive Director, became heavily committed to a whole series of
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>deceptive arguments.
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">></span>
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>Because many people saw the defects in existing systems, they did
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>succeed in getting IRV implemented in a few places. And then those
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>places started to discover the problems with IRV, and quite a few have
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>rescinded the implementations, and it's possible the backlash has made
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>it unlikely for voting system reform to succeed in those places for many
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>years. The experts whom they rejected have started to independently
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>organize, and to present evidence at hearings and in campaigns, it's
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>getting more difficult for FairVote, as they ended up calling
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>themselves, to win implementations.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">I'll add that in Canada the FairVote group directly advocates STV and
European-based PR methods, not the stepping-stone IRV path.
(BTW, please don't confuse the similarly named FairVote and VoteFair names.)
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
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