I wouldn't write the OBIT yet. Yes, voting reforms require more mindshare and explanation than many other initiatives (and they should - voting being so fundamental to our democracy). Also true that parties in power (which today almost always means extreme minority factions of the party) are going to fight reform with all they have.
This isn't about "RCV," it's about a variety of potential reforms aimed at correcting the excesses of our current two-party duopoly. A small sliver of the most partisan voters of the dominant local party (over 80% of districts are noncompetitive thanks to gerrymandering), are choosing our representatives and that is not working out well. Reformers need to help voters understand exactly how the current system is disenfranchising them (the tails of the bell curve, rather than the fat part, making all the decisions) and have that connected to the poor quality of candidates they see on general election ballots. There remains plenty of evidence that voters are deeply unsatisfied with the choices they have been given, including last Tuesday.
The D.C. initiative passed overwhelmingly (73%-27%) despite fierce opposition from the Democrats in power. They demonstrated that a high-touch campaign finds voters highly enthused by the potential of these reforms.
Thus far, no one has proposed a better pathway to correcting the imbalance of power with the extreme wings of the two parties. These kinds of reforms historically build over many cycles. I suspect voters will be every bit as disenchanted with how government is doing two years from now and equally horrified by the general election choices provided by the current system. Having taken the temperature of the reform movement the past few days, resolve is strong. Speaking for myself, I will continue to dedicate substantial time and treasure to his cause in hopes of leaving a more functional democracy as a legacy.
All good points - I used to volunteer with the Forward Party and used to agree with all of these. I've come to believe though that these policy solutions are too downstream from culture to affect meaningful change. They simply don't get people excited, and I think Tuesday proved that out.
I have a lot of articles talking about my proposed pathway to correcting the imbalance of power within the extreme wings of the party, but in short, there needs to be a focus on combatting the extreme negativity in our public discourse. Overly-negative and pessimistic worldviews drive people towards the extremes and make it hard to have nuanced policy debate on things like open primaries and voting reform. Politics is downstream from culture, so if we want a less polarized politics, we should start with depolarizing the culture. In my view, the best way to do that is to push back on negativity bias.
I agree that the complexity of the proposal works against RCV.
One other factor is that the majority party in a state is always against it out of self-interest (it will reduce their number of seats). And most voters belong to or lean towards the majority party in their state.
I notice that the results were much closer in competitive states than non-competitive states.
Agree with the logic of majority parties being opposed, but in most of these races the vast majority of the money spent was by proponents of RCV (Alaska was 100-1), so it's not like well-funded party elites are the roadblock here. The competitive states of AZ and NV voted against by 59% and 54%, compared to the deeply uncompetitive blue states of OR and CO, which also voted against by 59% and 54%. The only outliers were the red states of ID and MO. Not totally sure what that's about but could just be conservative populations are naturally more conservative when it comes to voting reform. Would be super interesting to have sample data on why voters across these different states decided to vote against the props.
My comment was not referring to campaign finance so much as voter sentiment. Many voters do not want to change the electoral rules in ways that benefit the other party. I certainly saw that in my state. The majority party came out hard against it. It was very obvious in the yard signs.
And I would regard OR and CO as more competitive than ID and MO.
Another possible factor is that I think voters tend to have a heuristic in referendum: “When in doubt, vote no.”
OR and CO are more competitive that ID and MO, but they're far less competitive than AZ and NV. Yep, I totally agree that heuristic exists. Especially in more conservative states. Maybe there is still just a lack of education, but in my mind if an initiative needs this much education, it probably isn't the slam dunk solution proponents think it is.
No, it is obviously not a slam dunk solution, and the complexity issue is real. Most Americans have a hard time imagining anything different from single-member district.
I would be really interested in seeing the partisan breakdown in voting for that issue.
I wouldn't write the OBIT yet. Yes, voting reforms require more mindshare and explanation than many other initiatives (and they should - voting being so fundamental to our democracy). Also true that parties in power (which today almost always means extreme minority factions of the party) are going to fight reform with all they have.
This isn't about "RCV," it's about a variety of potential reforms aimed at correcting the excesses of our current two-party duopoly. A small sliver of the most partisan voters of the dominant local party (over 80% of districts are noncompetitive thanks to gerrymandering), are choosing our representatives and that is not working out well. Reformers need to help voters understand exactly how the current system is disenfranchising them (the tails of the bell curve, rather than the fat part, making all the decisions) and have that connected to the poor quality of candidates they see on general election ballots. There remains plenty of evidence that voters are deeply unsatisfied with the choices they have been given, including last Tuesday.
The D.C. initiative passed overwhelmingly (73%-27%) despite fierce opposition from the Democrats in power. They demonstrated that a high-touch campaign finds voters highly enthused by the potential of these reforms.
Thus far, no one has proposed a better pathway to correcting the imbalance of power with the extreme wings of the two parties. These kinds of reforms historically build over many cycles. I suspect voters will be every bit as disenchanted with how government is doing two years from now and equally horrified by the general election choices provided by the current system. Having taken the temperature of the reform movement the past few days, resolve is strong. Speaking for myself, I will continue to dedicate substantial time and treasure to his cause in hopes of leaving a more functional democracy as a legacy.
All good points - I used to volunteer with the Forward Party and used to agree with all of these. I've come to believe though that these policy solutions are too downstream from culture to affect meaningful change. They simply don't get people excited, and I think Tuesday proved that out.
I have a lot of articles talking about my proposed pathway to correcting the imbalance of power within the extreme wings of the party, but in short, there needs to be a focus on combatting the extreme negativity in our public discourse. Overly-negative and pessimistic worldviews drive people towards the extremes and make it hard to have nuanced policy debate on things like open primaries and voting reform. Politics is downstream from culture, so if we want a less polarized politics, we should start with depolarizing the culture. In my view, the best way to do that is to push back on negativity bias.
I agree that the complexity of the proposal works against RCV.
One other factor is that the majority party in a state is always against it out of self-interest (it will reduce their number of seats). And most voters belong to or lean towards the majority party in their state.
I notice that the results were much closer in competitive states than non-competitive states.
Agree with the logic of majority parties being opposed, but in most of these races the vast majority of the money spent was by proponents of RCV (Alaska was 100-1), so it's not like well-funded party elites are the roadblock here. The competitive states of AZ and NV voted against by 59% and 54%, compared to the deeply uncompetitive blue states of OR and CO, which also voted against by 59% and 54%. The only outliers were the red states of ID and MO. Not totally sure what that's about but could just be conservative populations are naturally more conservative when it comes to voting reform. Would be super interesting to have sample data on why voters across these different states decided to vote against the props.
My comment was not referring to campaign finance so much as voter sentiment. Many voters do not want to change the electoral rules in ways that benefit the other party. I certainly saw that in my state. The majority party came out hard against it. It was very obvious in the yard signs.
And I would regard OR and CO as more competitive than ID and MO.
Another possible factor is that I think voters tend to have a heuristic in referendum: “When in doubt, vote no.”
OR and CO are more competitive that ID and MO, but they're far less competitive than AZ and NV. Yep, I totally agree that heuristic exists. Especially in more conservative states. Maybe there is still just a lack of education, but in my mind if an initiative needs this much education, it probably isn't the slam dunk solution proponents think it is.
No, it is obviously not a slam dunk solution, and the complexity issue is real. Most Americans have a hard time imagining anything different from single-member district.
I would be really interested in seeing the partisan breakdown in voting for that issue.