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The system suggested, one would think, would be very popular with voters and would raise vicious enmity from party apparatchiks. It would stop a lot of the extreme rhetoric.

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Hi Tim,

The first part of your article is sensible but your endorsement of RCV is misguided.

https://www.starvoting.org/pros_and_cons

https://www.starvoting.org/rcv_v_star

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Interesting. I've heard plenty about RCV but never Star.

Are you saying that RCV is worse than the current widespread first past the post plurality? I would find that hard to believe. Perfect need not be the enemy of the good.

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My understanding is that Ranked Choice is usually better than FPTP but it can sometimes fail catastrophically.

https://rangevoting.org/Burlington.html

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That makes sense. RCV doesn't take into account voters' second (and further) preference until their first choice is eliminated. Star voting could eliminate that by showing a weighted preference to all candidates.

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The fact that RCV already has _any_ traction vs. single-choice voting is a huge plus. It might not be optimal for finding the best candidate, but the fact that it's gotten some traction in people's brains is immensely valuable (it's almost immensely easy to discount that value because it's not a perfect solution).

I'm a software developer who has been in too many software projects that can't make any tangible progress because an incremental improvement isn't as awe-inspiring as version 2.0 of something. In the meantime, people are really crying out for less pain, not to feel awesome.

So there might be more to Tim's endorsement from the big picture sense than some far-down-the-road optimal vote outcome system.

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