It doesn't seem right that one cannot delete their own post just because someone responded to it. Even if it is entirely extinct.
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It doesn't seem right that one cannot delete their own post just because someone responded to it. Even if it is entirely extinct.
I consider this one of the two most important pieces of reformist work
(along with the Clean Money Campaign/Disclose initiative) going on right now.
I'm with you only up to this point.
Unfortunately, you have been slightly misinformed about your proposed solution, instant runoff voting. Specifically, your claim that there are no spoilers, is wrong. Allow me to show an example:
45%: A > B > C
25%: B > A > C
30%: C > B > A
Consider this 3-candidate election. By the rules of instant runoff voting, B is eliminated first, and then A defeats C, 70% to 30%. But if you remove C from all the ballots, so that the race is simply A versus B, then B wins, 55% to 45%.
To review: without C in the race, B wins. With C in the race, B loses, and A wins instead. That means that C is a spoiler.
The fact that spoilers are still present, means that instant runoff voting is unlikely to have any effect on the dominance of the two major parties. Indeed, instant runoff voting has been used in Australia for about a century, and their politics is still two-party dominated.
There are however election methods which actually are truly spoiler-free. The simplest of these is approval voting, in which you are allowed to mark you ballot as supporting any number of candidates, instead of just one. Under approval voting, removing a losing candidate from the ballot, as we did in the above example, can never change the winner. And with no spoilers to undermine a growing political party, two-party reign could actually be ended.
If you're interested, there is more information available form the Center for Election Science: https://www.electology.org/approval-voting
I also write about this topic at The Least of All Evils: https://leastevil.blogspot.com/
Thank you for supporting election reform, and I hope this new information leads you to better methods!
IRV is fine for executive positions like governor, other constitutional offices, mayor and even president. However, legislatures like State Assembly and U. S. House of Representatives should represent the various constituencies in society. Therefore, the elections held in single member districts will not work for this purpose. We need to change the California Constitution to allow for the election of several members from each district. Then we can use Proportional Representation. For example: If we have a district where 10 members are elected, and a constituency receives 10% of the vote that constituency will have one of its members elected or 10% of the seats in the district. If another constituency receives 50% of the vote that constituency will have five of its members elected or 50% of the seats in the district. That way, the majority is protected and minorities are given a voice and representation. That is a win, win solution.