A recent
diary that trumpeted a pro-IRV initiative in Minneapolis sparked an interesting debate. Most posters (including myself) supported the idea, while a pair of people spoke of IRV's downsides. I am concerned that those downsides were misrepresented or perhaps overstated, though I trust the posters had the best of intentions.
I hope this diary will either help those latters Kossacks find a new understanding, or give others good reasons to take their concerns with the appropriate grains of salt.
(NOTE: I posted much of this as a comment to that first diary. However, I am expanding my notes, thus a full diary.)
First, allow me to clarify why I think IRV is necessary. If candidates of any party--major or minor--have to worry about "being too honest" with voters, then something's wrong with how our ballot system rewards that honesty. This concern doesn't preclude the value of other election reforms that focus on changing how we literally vote, but IRV is also a remedy.
Consider the psychology of voters under a winner-take-all system (WTA): if a candidate isn't mathematically viable in a voter's eyes, that candidate will never gain traction. Nobody wants to waste a vote. This is what makes a minor party so minor from a voting-math perspective: until it can convince voters of two things (that it can win, and that it won't cause their most disliked candidate to win), it becomes a risky proposition to vote for a minor party under WTA. IRV eliminates that risk without depriving the majority--however the majority defines itself, "major" or "minor"--of its ability to govern.
Here's what IRV doesn't do. It doesn't guarantee that the 20-percent party in every House race in the state (for example) gets a single seat. IRV is meant to be used in single-seat races. If voters can use IRV to vote their consciences without having to game the system, then this does increase the likelihood that smaller parties will win seats. It doesn't give them as many seats (usually) as proportional representation, true. But IRV does increase the viability of third parties without compromising majority rule. In doing this, it rewards thoughtful political debate.
Another Kossack complaint about IRV was that it would disenfranchise minority and undereducated voters due to its complexity. While IRV would increase the need for voter education, and would perhaps cause temporary challenges that are not unlike those similar voters encounter every year, I think this complaint misses two points. First, change requires learning and growth. Second, IRV would increase the chance that these voters can elect someone who represents their views. Asking voters to learn a new (and really not so hard) system in exchange for greater clout at the ballot box doesn't sound like disenfranchisement to me. It sounds like valuable reform.
As a side note to the original conversation, party-preference ballots produce different "problems" for elections. While a state's overall party percentages become reflected in a legislative body, there is no guarantee that those elected will represent each geographic area's interests. This outcome carries its positives and negatives, of course, and there are many ways to propose sensible middle-road ideas.