Instant runoff voting is the system we need

Re:Instant runoff voting is the system we need by sneak on Tuesday November 06, 2018 @10:14PM (#18396862)

Every time I see something along these lines, I think of a discussion between people debating which base OS to use to build a platform to power billions of mobile phones: Plan 9, or BeOS?

It doesn’t matter. It ain’t gonna happen. Not because IRV or condorcet is or isn’t better, but simply because of the installed base. Getting literally everyone to a) understand the subtle differences and then b) agree to switch and c) agree to switch to the same system is impossible because literally every step of the process is itself impossible.

This is not me being pessimistic, this is me being realistic.

Humorously, a top down dictatorial approach would be the only way to “improve” (by some estimations) the current democratic implementation. You’d have to not care about democracy to upgrade democracy.

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Re:Instant runoff voting is the system we need by Mbioguy on Wednesday November 07, 2018 @12:07PM (#18400482)

Yes, it's impossible to convince a large number of people to switch, which perfectly explains why Maine is still using FPtP despite the large push for RCV a few years ago.

Proof by contradiction, mate. It's not impossible, just hard. There's plenty of things that once we're said to be impossible, and the data agreed... until they happened. Everything had to have had a first time.

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