You can try voting in the SF election in this web poll.

Proportional Representation promoters: San Francisco considered a PR method in 1996, but voters were spooked by its novelty and adopted single-member districts with runoffs instead. This time the city is taking a smaller step in that direction that will result in a stronger mandate for the winner, but if SF or any city wants to take the bold step of nearly guaranteeing satisfactory representation, rather than just the right to vote, PR is the way to go.

Mr. Saroff, legislators will always have to cut deals with minor constituencies, be they at the fringe or the center, regardless of their election method. And do you think that the best solution is to systematically deny people representation in order to achieve consensus? You don’t need to lower the bar to the point that the Hair Party wins seats in order to give people satisfactory representation. PR is used by most modern democracies and it works well. The “party maverick” argument applies to only a specific PR method; there are many alternatives.

Mr. Yanco, approval voting is not a cure; it thwarts majority rule because it ignores preferences among candidates you support. If 99% of voters strongly prefer A over B, but indicate support for both, but 1% supports only B, then that 1% would overrule the preference of all other voters.

The Condorcet methods suffer from similar problems, as outlined here. Same is true for the weighted vote method suggested by “onymous”.

If you have the time, it’s an interesting read.

I hate trying to engineer my vote to keep my least favorite choice from winning. I’d love to see something else implemented that more accurately reflects the populations desire for a leader.

-Greg

And PLEASE, let’s not discuss proportional voting. It has some problems:

* If you need the Sandra Berhnart Hair party to maintain your coalition, you get fscked up legislation.

* It eliminates party mavericks. If you make waves, you move down the list, and you don’t get elected.

* No constituent access to elected representatives, which means less accountability.

Of course, the biggest problem with IRV, at least as regards the Greens, is that it is entirely self referential.

Look at the parties big ideas, with tongue planted somewhat in cheek (let’s ignore the Republicans and Democrats for a moment):

* Libertarian: Very little government except for the death penalty for use of Kaaza.

* Constitution Party: Establish an evangelical Christian theocracy with easy access to guns.

* Greens: Instant Runoff Voting.

The Libertarians and the Constitution Party have a vision for society. The Green’s issue is, “Help me get elected.”

Parties need to demonstrate a modicum of ability to serve their constituency before they start making sanctimonious noises about changing the process the benefit themselves.

For the .hack/jhimm poster that didn’t seem to understand what the problem was, consider that we typically don’t elect people based on a *majority*, which you might be thinking, only a plurality (the candidate with the most votes). If you have a two-party system, and candidate A earns 40% of the votes, candidate B wins with 60%. But if you have a third candidate C very similar to B, that 60% gets divided between them. So A may still have 40% of the votes (most of the population prefers someone other than A), but B and C now have 30% each. A wins, to the disappointment of the *majority* of the voters. The solution is for potential B/C voters to determine which is “more likely” to get the most votes, and give that candidate their vote, even if they slightly prefer the other. Since we’re so focused on the two major parties, it’s a given that the candidate “most likely” to get the votes is going to be one of those two party candidates.

Check out some of the links provided by other posters to learn the merits and problems with some of the other more popular voting methods.

I personally cannot *stand* a system of voting that essentially requires a significant percentage of voters to vote strategically. It’s very wrong when I cannot vote for the candidate I want for fear that the candidate I *least* want will benefit.