Mr. Walker – is this all you do, write about IRV and PR every day on progressive blogs and hope that no one on here actually does any research on IRV that might show you are wrong?

You are really reading too much into the large number of UNA voters in this country. Another way of looking at that large number is they are people who vote with one major party or the other, but are not impressed by the failure of the party leaders (elected public officials and party officers) to follow their own party’s platform and/or bylaws. Many of these parties merely function as adjunct arms of the campaigns of the top-dog candidates, or as money-laundering operations.

So what the large majority of people might actually want is public officials, candidates and party leaders who live up to what their party claims to stand for. IRV, PR and third-parties won’t help that. Public campaign financing would – ban all private money from campaigns will keep the elected leaders honest. I fail to see how IRV and PR will do that.

What if you believe in a very little social safety net but gay marriage and liberal drug laws, and no foreign wars. They system locks you out from finding a representative that fits your views.

This of course assumes that there is anyone even in the field that you really want. For those of us further to the left (especially in red or purple states) that is generally simply not an option. I have rarely had a choice of someone I actually wanted, as opposed to the least worst candidate. If Bernie Sanders ever runs for president that may change.

Chris, as you surely know by the fact that my views align with Warren’s on this, I disagree, to an extent. Obviously, IRV can’t help the situation, because it shares most of the flaws of Plurality. PR might, because at least it lets groups with certain viewsets outside the norm get some form of representation.

The problem with financing is that it’s so much more difficult and probably has less benefit than Score voting. I don’t need to reiterate those views for you, but for the benefit of all the others, I will point to our ballpark estimates that put a conversion to Score (aka Range) voting as more beneficial for democracy than the invention of democracy itself. More info can be found at http://www.rangevoting.org/RelImport.html and more on the general system can be found at that same website.

So what the large majority of people might actually want is public officials, candidates and party leaders who live up to what their party claims to stand for. IRV, PR and third-parties won’t help that.

IRV voting would absolutely help that. How much more motivated do you think Democrats would be to deliver on what they campaign on, if voters could viably express another party as their preference next election and only vote Democrat as their “backup choice” on the ballot, and third parties could build gradually over time without voters needing to fear “wasting” their vote every time?

I don’t think voting third-party is a wasted vote anyway given how odious the Democrats have been, but they could be held accountable much more effectively with IRV.

IRV, PR, and campaign finance reform would all be an improvement on the status quo. As it stands my only options are to vote for a third party candidate that usually can’t win, or vote for the other guy as a self-sabotaging form of protest.

Yep, though the UK is much better than us in that it has a parliamentary system of government, which means third parties are at least viable.

Instant runoff voting together with public campaign financing would work wonders for democracy.

http://www.instantrunoff.com/

I’d like to see proportional voting in at least one house of Congress. Right now, the Senate strikes me as the logical choice.

As for instant runoff, I think it will take some time to figure out how it affects elections here. Not everyone votes the same way, or for the same reasons. Still, it does sound like an improvement.

in 2008 42 Democrats ran in gerrymandered districts with zero Republican opposition

This article seems very confused.

‘Tactical voting’ is not a problem (though it might be considered a response to one). Nor can it be eliminated by IRV (which simply pushes the tactical vote down one level to the second-choice position).

For those of us sufficiently disillusioned by our two-party charade here in the U.S. tactical voting offers a potential means of making that broken system work for us – e.g., by voting Republican to make it clear to Democrats that being by some minor margin the lesser of two evils will NOT get them elected (i.e., that the only way they’ll get to rule is if they rule as we would like them to). Voting Republican may be personally distasteful when compared with ‘voting our consciences’ for some deserving but hopeless third-party candidate, but it doubles our vote’s effectiveness in kicking out DINOs to achieve this end (or the equivalent end of creating a political vacuum in the portion of the political spectrum currently hogged by DINOs that a more deserving party can grow to occupy).

Certainly not an ideal situation, but until such time as a better system has evolved it’s the one we have to work within – so let’s work it as best we can. We can still support legitimately progressive candidates – both third-party and, should be be so lucky, Democratic – while at the same time employing this strategy at the ballot box whenever failing to do so might allow a DINO to be elected. My own dividing line comes between state and national offices: I’m still willing to vote for Democrats in-state but am intent on evicting those in D.C. People who have the option to vote for one of those few legitimately progressive Democrats in D.C. have a more complex choice to make.

The issue for us in this country is that those with the power to solve the problem here are all Democrats and Republicans, who most benefit from leaving the current setup unchanged

Howard Dean has endorsed IRV. There’s someone who cares about what’s best for the country. If we would stand behind people like Dean, instead of letting TV commercials and the MSM tell us who to vote for, we would have a chance.

Thers is upstairs!
Late Night: Lieberman Citizen Stripping Proposal Lays Bare True Glories of Lady Liberty

I still proudly display my Dean For America sticker on my vehicle (and hope it remains healthy long enough for that sticker to become applicable again). Howard has always been very clear that he won’t do anything to damage the party, but within that constraint will attempt to reform it.

We fear a third party can’t win so we don’t want to waste our vote on it.

voting for a Legacy Party that is certain to betray your interests is the real wasted vote, sheesh.

I don’t like it but it is the problem we face with single member districts first past the post problem.

Voting Republican to teach a lesson to Democrats may just teach the Democrat to move to the right.

the ‘we’ to whom you ascribe the position

We fear a third party can’t win so we don’t want to waste our vote on it.

is rapidly diminishing as folks who are able to remember (D) Party glory days of FDR or JFK fade from the scene.

the link you cite assumes that the ‘spoiler’ effect will always retain its deterrent powers.

to many of us, it matters not a whit whether a Donkey is driving the war machine or an Elephant, I would no sooner pledge my support to one or the other, because then I would implicate myself in the crimes they will commit in my name. no thanks.

Voting Republican to teach a lesson to Democrats may just teach the Democrat to move to the right.

As long as large sums of money need to be raised to run campaigns, then both parties will continue to move toward the money, and that ain’t left.

I think the subtext of this article is that, for once, Dems are beginning to fear a backlash tactical vote against them this year and in 2012.

A problem I’ve detected with many who are involved in the progressive cause at what I call a “mid-level” is their anger at Dem sellouts but their unwillingness to go the full monty and punish the Dems. Doing the latter means risking ostracism, loss of access and funding sources, being exiled to a lonely voice in the socio-political wilderness.

Jane herself has voiced concerns about how Dem policies may result in Dems suffering big losses this year. Big losses by the Dems should be cheered. “Yay! Fuck you, just like you fucked us.” And I mean, not just the “bad” Dems but the “good” Dems, too. Why? Because there are no “good” Dems. They’re all spineless, self-aggrandizing, kabuki-playing scumbags, from O on down. All of them. Every damn one.

I don’t think you understood my point. The intended lesson is that the only way that Democrats will get elected is to move – sharply and convincingly – to the left. If they misconstrue this and instead move to the right, that’s OK: they’ll get even less support from those who still half-believe that there’s a worthwhile difference between them and the Republicans.

Eventually, either they’ll wise up and start standing for those things that will get them elected or leave a space for legitimate non-Democratic progressives to fill (rather than sucking all the air out of such efforts as they do today).

I understand why this approach may be difficult to accept. The question is, what’s the alternative? We elected more Democrats in 2006 and even more (including the president) in 2008 – and if anything the resulting strong majorities just made them more brazen rather than caused any major rejection of the Bush-era policies.

If they’re going to act like Republicans, then there’s really very little to be lost by electing Republicans. And doing so will give the Democratic party some serious incentive to shape up (or get dumped on the trash-heap of history to make room for a more deserving successor).

That’s my plan, anyway – until such time as I see dramatic and pervasive changes in party behavior and accomplishments (not just rhetoric). I’m always willing to listen to anyone claiming they have a better plan, but so far I’m not aware of anything remotely resembling a convincing one.

That’s a fact. I think anything that might lessen the influence of parties over candidates and elected representatives would be a good thing.

RE: Range Voting.
Good try, but the “quantitation” is not convincing to this biomedical scientist. To many hidden variables. I’ll read more on your topic, though.

I don’t see how democracy can be achieved until:

1. People, to the best of their ability, know the truth about the world. This won’t happen as long as corporations, especially as few as the present, control the media, and especially when the media is owned by a larger corporation with a vested interest in, say, war. (Does Range Voting work if people are duped?)

2. Politician owe their position to the general public, not to a special interest, a few individuals, or big money in general. This will only happen under full public funding of election campaigns. (Does Range Voting work if only the well funded or the rich are viable candidates?)

3. Big money interests are excluded from politics, including elections, lobbying, and future employment, aka, the revolving door. Included in this solution is the banning of corporate personhood. (See #1-2.)

4. People have a choice of voting for a representative that approximates their political philosophy. This means a strong multi-party system probably via proportional representation. While legislating, fluid alliances will be made depending on the issue in at least a two-dimensional political world (e.g., politicalcompass.org). (#1-3 makes it difficult for Range Voting to elect a “man of the people”.)

5. The government controls the money supply. No more debt based, private, national banks. (I threw this in because debtors are not “free”.)

pigs will fly before Democrats “move – sharply and convincingly – to the left.”

proceed with plan.

old, legacy systems fail whether or not their replacements are ready.

let the big dead tree fall, the forest will grow new, viable replacements once the sunshine comes in.

I felt the same way for a while, but later came around to the belief that a non-negligible percentage of nominally progressive D.C. Democrats may indeed be spineless but could perhaps be salvageable if they weren’t held in thrall by the party establishment.

So I’d gladly settle for attempting to toss Obama, nearly all the Senate Democrats, and, say, 85% of the House Democrats out on their butts and giving the rest a chance to show how they’d act without such bad influences. If I lived in Kucinich’s district I suspect that I’d have very mixed feelings about anyone urging me to vote for his Republican opponent, so keeping an open mind in such specific cases is one way to avoid getting the overall idea summarily dismissed by those who might otherwise consider it.

It’s also important to remember that, while harnessing anger can be worthwhile, I’m actually talking about a strategy here rather than simple revenge for betrayal (however reasonable and satisfying that revenge might be). It certainly appears necessary to use a 2×4 to get the donkey’s attention but my intent is not to fatally injure the beast unless it becomes clear that there’s no likelihood that it may become willing to cooperate.

The bottom line is that while I’d accept anger and revenge if they are the only available options for getting this done, I think it might be more effective to keep the field open a little wider if possible. I’ve seen at least some minor indications that this idea might catch on a bit, but only if it’s presented in a manner that does not allow it to be dismissed as quackery: this is a step beyond voting third-party, and even that resulted in well-orchestrated belittlement in 2004 and 2008.

Kucinich? Dennis Kavingin-ich? He’s exactly the kind of high profile, all talk, no spine cocksucker we should be tossing out on their ass.

DK rat-fucked every single progressive, in his district and nationwide. He destroyed — self-immolated — the only symbol of progressive courage we had up to that time.

DK getting burned at the electoral stake is just what we need to put the fear of fucking god in future “progressive” candidates who intend to be PINOs.

The Democrats and Republicans have merged. They are a political monopoly representing the Oligarchy. Until they are overthrown the government will remain corrupt. There will be no IRV or PR or any other improvement as long as Americans continue to support the Democrats and Republicans.

The real tactical voting issue in the US is voting for the Lesser Shithead. As long as the voters by a large majority do not apply a zero tolerance approach to incumbent frauds, nothing will change – especially not the way elections are rigged.

If Obama can get a second term, discussing voting reform is just a waste of oxygen.

I’m very well aware of what Kucinich did and certainly understand your point of view: I simply don’t agree with it. That’s symptomatic of the problem that progressives have in general: we’re entirely too picky about working with people with whom we have any disagreement at all, which means we get divided-and-conquered with depressing regularity.

So I’ve decided that people who can agree on kicking out MOST of the Democrats in D.C. are worth associating with, whether they want to kick out every last one or believe that giving a few of them a chance for redemption makes sense. My own opinion is that kicking out progressives WITHOUT kicking out the rest of them won’t do any good whatsoever, whereas the reverse might – but as long as most of them get the boot I won’t quibble about the details.

Shairdawelth,

I don’t know what you mean by “hidden variables”. Warren Smith’s Bayesian Regret calculations employ five tunable parameters, such as

- ratio of strategic-to-honest voters
and
- ignorance factor for each voter (represents the disparity between how beneficial voters perceive a candidate to be for them, vs. how beneficial that candidate actually is)

His calculations involved the average of hundreds of thousands of simulated elections over 720 different permutations of those parameters. Score Voting was the best of all “non-exotic” methods for every single permutation.

Does Range Voting work if people are duped?

The question is whether it works well relative to other voting methods. Of course people will make incorrect decisions if they have incorrect information. But as I mentioned, Smith’s calculations incorporated an ignorance factor, and Score Voting still outperformed rival methods regardless of the level of ignorance of the voters.

Does Range Voting work if only the well funded or the rich are viable candidates?

Actually that’s a particularly wonderful feature of Score Voting — that it makes viability almost irrelevant to decision of which candidates to support, because SV passes the Favorite Betrayal Criterion. Say it’s the 2000 USA election and you sincerely believe Nader=10, Gore=6, Bush=0. Even if you think Nader has absolutely no chance to win — you still will want to give him a 10. If you are a tactical voter instead of a sincere one, you will obviously give Gore a 10 instead of a 6, to help him defeat Bush. But if it turns out that enough people prefer Nader to Bush and Gore, then he will still win, even if no one thought he had a chance.

Just how much that reduces the importance of cash is apparently huge. Consider exit polls that said about 90% of Nader supporters actually voted for someone else back in 2000. That means that the number of votes Nader would have earned by having a voting method in which electability was irrelevant, was about NINE TIMES as many votes as he earned from all the money he was able to raise and all the speeches he was able to give and all the air time he got. So while cash will still obviously matter with Score Voting, it’ll matter a whole lot less.

IRV cannot compete, because it fails the FBC. It basically degrades to plurality voting in practice, and has maintained two-party duopoly in places like Australia, where it has been used for decades. Ironically, normal “non-instant” runoffs have escaped duopoly in around 24 of the 27 countries where they’ve been used.

3. Big money interests are excluded from politics, including elections, lobbying, and future employment, aka, the revolving door. Included in this solution is the banning of corporate personhood. (See #1-2.)

The problem with this approach is that it seeks to address the money/power problem by leveling the playing field, so to speak, rather than making money inherently less important (the way Score Voting does). It’s not a stable solution, because politicians who cheat these laws will be more likely to win, and then just retroactively make whatever they did legal.

Score Voting is a real solution, because it’s anti-money-importance effect works regardless of whether politicians cheat the system. A politician who takes a lot more special interest money won’t have as big an advantage.

People have a choice of voting for a representative that approximates their political philosophy. This means a strong multi-party system probably via proportional representation.

You won’t get proportional representation in the USA until you first get Score Voting, because federal laws prohibiting PR in Congress WILL NOT be changed until Congress is no longer two-party dominated.

#1-3 makes it difficult for Range Voting to elect a “man of the people”.

I would argue the complete opposite; that those points particularly illustrate that Score Voting is the only voting method which will do so. And to think that other reforms are more important than getting Score Voting is naive. Score Voting is either more important than those reforms, or is a prerequisite for getting them.

The government controls the money supply. No more debt based, private, national banks. (I threw this in because debtors are not “free”.)

How are you going to stop them, but to elect better leaders whose actions more accurately reflect the will of the people? How are you going to do that without getting Score Voting?