---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Richard Fobes <electionmeth...@votefair.org> To: election-meth...@electorama.com Cc: Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2011 12:39:23 -0800 Subject: Re: [EM] Electoral Experimentation On 12/15/2011 12:15 PM, David L Wetzell wrote: > dlw: Within the third parties themselves, there'd need to be used > single-winner elections to determine their candidates/leaders/positions. > In these regards, there'd be great scope for experimentation with > single-winner election rules, especially since they'd have no commitment > to a particular single-winner election rule.
Fobes: You said that experimentation opportunities would be "a good reason to strategically support IRV". Presumably IRV would be used for both internal voting "to determine their candidates/leaders/positions" and for choosing candidates for public elections. dlw: There'd be no need for such. The point is that if there were many LTPs, local third parties, they'd have their own rules and could use IRV[or another alternative to FPTP] to choose which rules they'd use for internal voting and the determination of their candidates in elections. Why would IRV-chosen party leaders be motivated to try any other voting method (for either internal or candidate-selection use)? dlw: Because it'd be the American forms of PR, not IRV, that would give the LTPs license to win representation and to have more voice. I said "strategically support IRV for single-winner", not because it's a god-send but because bickering endlessly about the best single-winner election rule takes away from pushing for the aforementioned reform that would then bring about many venues for electoral experimentation. There's no good reason to presuppose that these smaller parties would be beholden to IRV so as not to consider other options. And that is why it's worthwhile to put aside the infinite number of other election rules and focus on getting Am forms of PR plus IRV as key parts of the renewal of the US's democracy. dlw Richard Fobes
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