On Sat, 10 May 2008, Doug Henwood wrote:
> States could set up proportional voting systems if they want. A growing
> third party could elect people to the House, not to mention state
> legislatures. It is a way to change the electoral system, though it'd
> take some time.
Sure! That would be the way. I'm just saying: it would have to be the way -- a major part of your movement's energy would have to turn around instituting IRV or something like it. Otherwise it wouldn't make sense.
And if someone can set up a national business model for getting IRV instituted on a large scale I would be deeply interested in devoting my time and energy to it. I've already got a book in my head on the subject.
But it brings us back one more time to the national model. The excitement of changing it in a state not only depends entirely on the national consequences -- it doesn't make rational sense on a state level, as recent developments in California have shown: if you're a progressive state, and you switch in a national election, all you've done is give up electoral votes.
There is a model for how to make this work -- it's that each state that passed a proportional voting measure would join a pact that wouldn't institutes the changes on a national level until an overwhelming number joined. And that up until then, they'd use them on state levels.
But doing this thoroughly on a state level is almost the same problem as doing it nationally. To organize a movement of people who really cared about turning the system upside down in a state with 17 million people in it, you need something that connects over long distance into a common endeavor that they can see grow and get excited by.
Michael