Yes, a good resource and, no, I wish FairVote were smarter.

Thank you, Astoria Bob, for providing the FairVote information.

I need to be honest: I am really not all that happy with these guys and gals. They promote ranked-choice voting as if it were a real solution. They are focusing on reforming one version of winner-take-all into another form of winner-take-all, the ‘much-improved’ version. That is unforgivable.

The good news (which is actually also not all that good) is that Fair Vote USA promotes multi-seat districts at state levels. This is their first real step toward proportional voting away from winner-take-all.

The downside of multi-seat districts is that nations with multi-seat districts have a tendency toward a single party in control for decades. The Center Party is a very logical outcome for multi-seat districts. Imagine five seats in a district. Voting this way has some proportional qualities to it, but due to the small number there is still a warp. This time, the warp is not left and right (red or blue), but toward the center. The Center Party ends up winning the centrist votes and with just five seats the warp is toward the center winning consistently.

If the United States ended up having a multi-seat district system, we could end up with a single party in control for 50 years.

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This is what I see many folks do, and I heard a Canadian pronounce this quite well: In the United States when folks try to get to the middle of the street, they cross it. It is the single-mindedness that is so much promoted because of the winner-take-all system. One way only; the other way gets no seats.

You say it, too, that when people want change, they actually want to get their guy or gal in. Single-mindedness. It is hard to break that mold.

Fair Vote USA wants change, but with that change they want to incorporate things the way they are. They are therefore doubling. They want the red path and the blue path to become one multicolored path that in result will still be very much red and blue. They are not adding green, orange or yellow to the path. They are adding purple.

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I am glad to read you think there is lots of information out there about proportional voting. I see a trickle at best in a rather desert setting. But you make me optimistic : -)

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For me, the following path is most logical and kind of the road of least resistance:

• Local Level: fully proportional already demanded in the Constitution.
• State Level: District elections with proportional adjustments at the overall level. Have the number of parties be limited to a handful. Example, Germany that took our US system and modified it. State constitutions are relatively easy to update.
• Federal Level: Let’s wait and see how Washington, D.C. ends up looking when Local and State levels produce more than red and blue. It is incredibly hard to change it — a miracle would probably not be enough to do it.

I do not see FairVote overcoming the gap we see in our democracy today.

Thank you for investigating this further. You are special and I recognize a fellow traveler in you in making this a better nation for all. People speaking up help create change.