instant runoff voting is also known as single transferable voting. Basically, each voter ranks the people they like on the ballot, and when the votes are tallied, candidates are dropped off the ballot until there's a majority win. If my candidate drops off in the first round, then my vote "transfers" to my second choice. (In a lot of places, like Haiti for example, people need majorities to win, but the runoff isn't instant -- it requires people to go back to the polls).
What I like about it is that it emulates the way people think about the process: "I really want Wilma to win, but if she doesn't win, I'd prefer to have Betty. But under no circumstances do I want Fred, because he's a fascist." I want to believe that it'd quell the need for "strategic" voting, where people really want one candidate, but feel that they hafta vote for a different candidate.
My hesitation with MMP is that I don't like the way that parties are dominating elections (I think they're replacing actual political conversation with brand-name politics), and I think that MMP makes parties even more central to the election process.
Ironically, I've just been in a conversation with Jenny about MMP and IRV, and I may be forced to reevaluate my take on those two systems.
Hmm, thanks. I've done a bit of reading on the STV-BC system. I don't know which I'd prefer if I got to pick: I want something that's proportional, multi-party, and locally-representative. I also want a system that makes it feasible for new parties to spring up as needed and MPs to switch parties, because I think that helps keep us away from the fossilized two-party system I see in the USA. But now I know I'm feeling sort of 'strategic' about the whole thing - if there's some incremental improvement on what we've got that more people would agree on, I'd vote for that.
Also, you know how they said when Elizabeth May was running in London that an independent was much more likely to win in a by-election than in a full election? That seemed unfortunate, but I don't know what the fix is.
I've read that one of the things they did in the first meeting of the Ontario Citizens' Assembly is made them vote on the meeting snacks. By a different method each time. And so if the first vote was FPP and 40% of the people wanted doughnuts, then all they got was doughnuts. I don't know if it's true, and I don't know if they really did have a conference-centre catering service on call to produce snacks-on-demand, but I hope they did.
Instant runoff voting is NOT the same thing as single transferable voting. They are superficially similar from the perspective of the voter, but the mechanisms behind them and the results they produce are drastically different.
In a nutshell: IRV is the system they use in Australia to elect the House of Representatives. It is not proportional, and it reduces the entire spectrum of political choices to two--even more than our current system. STV is the system they use in Ireland. It uses the same ballot IRV uses, but its result is proportional, and makes every vote count. If you're promoting STV over MMP, I have no objection to that (I don't agree, but I understand the arguments, and I like STV, too). If you're promoting IRV over MMP (or even over our current system!), I have lots of objections.
Has our whole discussion really been because you've been thinking IRV is the same thing as STV? I wish I'd known that--my late-night email would have been a lot shorter. ;-)
On the http://www.fairvotingbc.com/ Fair Voting BC website, there is a little animation showing how their system is supposed to work. They have the idea that they'd have some kind of super-ridings, like for a big city or a large rural area, and elect a bunch of people to represent that area using STV.
Also, I just had this devil's advocate idea the other day that it might show how the current system doesn't work great for Ontario, the idea of making up a "Bloc Tronna" party. But it would probably have to include the 905 to be a plurality of seats, and I'm not sure what the issues would be to make that happen.
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-10-11 05:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-10-12 03:00 pm (UTC)(I'm intermittently an MMP activist, and I don't actually know what instant-runoff is, and I probably should.)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-10-15 01:37 pm (UTC)What I like about it is that it emulates the way people think about the process: "I really want Wilma to win, but if she doesn't win, I'd prefer to have Betty. But under no circumstances do I want Fred, because he's a fascist." I want to believe that it'd quell the need for "strategic" voting, where people really want one candidate, but feel that they hafta vote for a different candidate.
My hesitation with MMP is that I don't like the way that parties are dominating elections (I think they're replacing actual political conversation with brand-name politics), and I think that MMP makes parties even more central to the election process.
Ironically, I've just been in a conversation with Jenny about MMP and IRV, and I may be forced to reevaluate my take on those two systems.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-10-15 01:58 pm (UTC)Also, you know how they said when Elizabeth May was running in London that an independent was much more likely to win in a by-election than in a full election? That seemed unfortunate, but I don't know what the fix is.
I've read that one of the things they did in the first meeting of the Ontario Citizens' Assembly is made them vote on the meeting snacks. By a different method each time. And so if the first vote was FPP and 40% of the people wanted doughnuts, then all they got was doughnuts. I don't know if it's true, and I don't know if they really did have a conference-centre catering service on call to produce snacks-on-demand, but I hope they did.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-10-15 03:46 pm (UTC)In a nutshell: IRV is the system they use in Australia to elect the House of Representatives. It is not proportional, and it reduces the entire spectrum of political choices to two--even more than our current system. STV is the system they use in Ireland. It uses the same ballot IRV uses, but its result is proportional, and makes every vote count. If you're promoting STV over MMP, I have no objection to that (I don't agree, but I understand the arguments, and I like STV, too). If you're promoting IRV over MMP (or even over our current system!), I have lots of objections.
Has our whole discussion really been because you've been thinking IRV is the same thing as STV? I wish I'd known that--my late-night email would have been a lot shorter. ;-)
-J
(no subject)
Date: 2007-10-15 04:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-10-15 04:25 pm (UTC)