While this system warrants merit, it is still very subjective to voting fraud on a whole new level.

In so far as this is basically an attack on "political machine" elections I favor it over the current scheme. Unfortunately the Republicrats don't want to disempower themselves, and they would have to sign off on such a plan, so anything they pass (like the "help america vote act") is likely to help them more then it helps democracy.

The application of such a system would be revolutionary, and may cause imbalance in the US, specifically with federal elections, since our federal system is designed to be less democratic to avoid "tyranny of the masses".

The video pretends that IRV helps major party candidates, but in their theoretical vote many more people may have voted for C knowing that their vote was not wasted, which seems to me a good outcome, but they didn't even touch it.

They also seem to think that it will counteract attack ads, but in San Francisco, where they have IRV, the attacks continue. Attack ads are a consequence of soft money politics, it's easier to spend money on "don't vote for" then on "vote for" because of campaign finance regulations. Campaign finance and attack ad problems can not be effectively addressable without restricting the "free speech rights" of corporations and PACs.

We should also consider that pluralistic voting is why Lincoln was elected president, what would the US look like if that had not happened?

>> ^dgandhi:
We should also consider that pluralistic voting is why Lincoln was elected president, what would the US look like if that had not happened?


Pluralistic voting is why Bush was elected president (or so we're told), what would the US look like that if that had not happened?

>> ^jimnms:
Pluralistic voting is why Bush was elected president (or so we're told), what would the US look like that if that had not happened?

The split vote problem discussed in the vid is possibly what got Lincoln in office, He only got ~40% of the vote. That is very different from a basically two candidate race where minor candidates take less then 2%, such as was the case in 2000.

As for Bush, I really don't see him as the lynchpin of US gov psychotic behavior, he is the latest(hopefully last) phase of a disturbing trend, the US is not all that different then it was before he came in, the fascism has simply continued to get thicker, but he didn't start that, he just ran with it. Unless he declares martial law to preempt the next election I expect that George W. Bush will join James K. Polk on the list of presidents Americans don't bother to remember.

James K. who?

I don't understand why Republicans should be less in favor of IRV than Democrats. Who gains the upper hand from a split vote changes ever election.

I don't see how this could be a realistic approach to a national election. Consider the ballet: there are 10-20 candidates on there. I wouldn't want to rank all of those myself and a I think a lot of voters would have a tough time figuring it all out.

Now an admittedly ignorant question: why do we need to support so many parties when we have open primaries? I understand, for instance, the Green Party is based around strong environmental views. Why do we need a whole political party built around this? Same goes for the Libertarian Party. Al Gore was very "green" but was a Democrat and Ron Paul is very Libertarian, but Republican. Why don't we just have the smaller independent parties run under the party they most closely associate with (Rep/Dem)? Consider the success Ron Paul is enjoying and then consider if he would have the same with the title "Libertarian."

I'd actually like to know, not trying to induce flames here.

>> ^Aemaeth:
I don't understand why Republicans should be less in favor of IRV than Democrats. Who gains the upper hand from a split vote changes ever election.

You may have misread my post, I used the portmanteau Republicrats

I don't see how this could be a realistic approach to a national election. Consider the ballet: there are 10-20 candidates on there. I wouldn't want to rank all of those myself and a I think a lot of voters would have a tough time figuring it all out.

Generally you are not required to vote for all outcomes, usually one or two "minor" candidates as first choices, then a "major" candidate for last pick, so that your general preference will always be counted.

Now an admittedly ignorant question: why do we need to support so many parties when we have open primaries? I understand, for instance, the Green Party is based around strong environmental views. Why do we need a whole political party built around this? Same goes for the Libertarian Party. Al Gore was very "green" but was a Democrat and Ron Paul is very Libertarian, but Republican. Why don't we just have the smaller independent parties run under the party they most closely associate with (Rep/Dem)? Consider the success Ron Paul is enjoying and then consider if he would have the same with the title "Libertarian."

The general argument against this is that the major parties, and the primary system in general, are designed to reduce electoral choice/input. Not all states have open primaries, or primary elections at all, some have caucuses, which further marginalize "unelectable" candidates.

The real value of IRV is that people can vote for people because they agree with them, not because they are "electable". IRV allows everybody to add their "electable" preference as a backup to their real choice so people are more likely to vote with their ideals than with cynical pragmatism.

Right now in the US less then 2% of the electorate votes with their ideals against pragmatism. When people vote for a Libertarian, Green or Socialist candidate for president or governor they know that they will not win, but they feel that votes should be based on ideas, not cynicism. IRV makes it possible to have both, everyone can vote their ideals, without having to worry about it having negative pragmatic consequences.

Thanks, dgandhi, for the explanation. Seems like it may still be a better idea to have more wide scale open primaries, though. I say that for simplicity's sake.

Aemaeth: I don't understand why Republicans should be less in favor of IRV than Democrats. Who gains the upper hand from a split vote changes every election.

Most Republicans appear to believe that they would be hurt by IRV and/or that Democrats would be helped. One reason is that in most parts of the country, the Greens are more of a problem for the Democrats than the Libertarians are for the Republicans. It's worth noting that in Alaska, where the small parties take a lot more votes away from the Republicans than from the Democrats, it was the Republican party that pushed an IRV proposal and the Democratic party that opposed it.

A second reason is that, at least historically, increasing voter turnout tends to help the left more than the right. IRV increases turnout dramatically when it replaces two-round runoff elections, because turnout is always low in the round that does not coincide with a general election. IRV also has the potential to improve turnout because more people will feel that have a better reason to vote if they don't have to chose a lesser evil.

Aemaeth again: Why don't we just have the smaller independent parties run under the party they most closely associate with (Rep/Dem)?

There's a sense in which this is what we have now. There are more people who are philosophically libertarian in the Republican party than there are in the Libertarian party, and likewise for radicals (Greens) in the Democratic party. They don't get much for their efforts. Except for the Christian conservatives, who seem to get a fair amount of what they want within the Republican party, the two party system doesn't work very well for anyone whose positions are not near the center of gravity of one of the two major parties.

And the folks who suffer are not just libertarians, Greens, socialists, etc. They are also the moderates caught in between the two main parties. See this valuable op-ed, for example.

But your suggestion brings to mind a related reform, fusion, where multiple parties run the same candidate. This is illegal in most states (New York is the main exception). Although it's a weak reform, it is supportable.