kevin_standlee | Range Voting

The folks advocating Range Voting contacted WSFS (actually, the WSFS webmaster,

sfrose) lobbying WSFS to change its voting system from the Instant Runoff Voting system we currently use for site selection and the Hugo Awards. Sharon told them how our rules work and suggested that if they want to change them, they come to WSFS business meetings and propose and debate the changes there, like all other rule changes. The advocate's response, in my opinion, amounted to, "Our proposal is so obviously Right that we shouldn't have to do all that hard, expensive work. You should change your rules because we tell you to do so."

I often tell people who come to me with rules-change proposals, "If you think it's worthwhile, come and submit it yourself. I'll help you with all of the technicalities to the best of my ability, but you have to make your own case, lobby people yourself, and get the votes by convincing people." Most of the time, this discourages them -- democracy is hard work! But sometimes we get people who are willing to work and debate, and sometimes we even get workable changes and improvements.

WSFS rules are intentionally designed to be resistant to change; however, they can be changed if people work hard enough at it. But it's not enough to just lobby a Board of Directors or subvert the Chairman; you have to convince the members.

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Since Ireland's presidential post began, in 1938, the Fianna Fáil Party has won all but once, when the Labour Party's Mary Robinson won in a phenomenal fluke; so IRV has produced a virtual party monopoly there.

The Dáil uses proportional representation, I believe, probably STV (IRV is just STV applied to single-winner races).

If you like proportional representation, then you should love Range Voting, because Reweighted Range Voting is better than STV in every conceivable way.
http://RangeVoting.org/RRV.html

Also, with IRV, which leads to two-party domination, we'll never EVER get to proportional representation in this country, aside from a few local elections - nothing that will effect big time politics. But with Range Voting, we'll break out of two-party domination, and have an actual chance of getting proportional representation.

See, if you had just done a little research before hastily trying to prove me wrong, this dialog could have gone a lot better for you.

Thanks,
Clay

Could have gone better for me? What, so you 'win' by finding out that one of your examples of IRV duopoly doesn't actually use IRV and talking down to everyone in such a way that you fail to convince anyone that your system is better or implementable at Worldcon?

so you 'win' by finding out that one of your examples of IRV duopoly doesn't actually use IRV

All of my examples were IRV. Ireland uses IRV in their presidential post, and it is two-party dominated (or more like ONE party dominated, except for a single exceptional fluke, when Mary Robinson won). This is especially significant, because Ireland's legislature has multiple viable parties, which should help there be more competetive parties for the post.

The same is true of Australia's house of representatives, since its Senate uses STV, and had something like 6 greens last I checked. But it's house of reps, which uses IRV, is a two party body. Australianpolitics.com says IRV "promotes a two-party system to the detriment of minor parties and independents." In Australian politics, this isn't even questioned, it's just accepted as a fact.

Range Voting

Re: Missing the point

Re: Missing the point

Re: Missing the point