Dear Fellow Voting Reformers,

I think there is some possibility of getting voting reform for some Colorado elections. I believe Ken Gordon is interested, perhaps in part due to Green Secretary of State candidate Rick VanWie's efforts. My own new state Representative, John Kefalas (D), is planning to submit one or more voting reform bills.

So, please urge Gordon and Kefalas and whatever other state senators and representatives you know to support some better voting method than what we have now.

Now here is the part you may disagree with me about, but please hear me out:

Please DON'T just ask for IRV. At the very least, please ask that they investigate and consider a variety of voting methods, specifically including Approval Voting and Range Voting (and IRV, if you must).

Here, briefly, are some reasons why we should consider other methods than IRV. For more details, please check the references listed below.

- Approval Voting is far simpler than IRV or any other alternative voting method.

- Approval Voting and Range Voting can be implemented with any existing voting machines. (IRV requires upgrades for voting machines and counting center software.)

- When voters vote sincerely, Range Voting gives better overall voter satisfaction with the results than any other common method.

- When voters vote strategically, Range Voting and Approval Voting give the same results, which still gives better overall voter satisfaction than other methods.

- With Range Voting and Approval Voting, voters are ALWAYS free to give their best vote to their favorite candidate without having to worry that they would cause their least-liked candidate to win. That's _NOT_ always true for IRV. See http://RangeVoting.org/IRVLetter.html for an example where ranking your favorite as 1st choice can lead to your least favorite candidate winning.

- IRV works OK in two-party dominated situations like the Florida 2000 presidential race, but it will have numerous problems if we ever have races with three candidates of roughly equal strength.

- San Francisco and Burlington, VT are already using IRV. Several other cities or other election districts have voted to adopt IRV, with vote results of around 60 70% for adopting. That is a tribute to the skillful campaigning and hard work of the people at Center for Voting and Democracy (the main driving force behind IRV in the US), and it also shows that Americans will vote for voting reform if it is sold properly. However, I would also note:

-- Americans might well vote for Approval Voting or Range Voting if it is properly sold.

-- A note of caution: most (perhaps all) of those successes involved replacing delayed runoff elections (such as they have in Denver) with IRV. When there is not a delayed runoff election that can be eliminated, the cost savings argument is lost, and it could be more difficult to sell any kind of voting reform.

-- IRV is being tried in several places in the US. It's time to try some other voting methods. Nathan Larson, founder of Virginians for Instant Runoff Voting (virv.org) has given us his endorsement calling for Range Voting, Approval Voting and other methods to be tried. See http://rangevoting.org/NLarsonEndorse.h ml .

-- Ralph Nader might agree with Larson. From http://votenader.org/issues/index.php?cid=40 : "Nobody knows how IRV will actually work in the United States - no matter what its fervent supporters may hope for. It has to be tested and also clarified within the context of local, state and national campaign funding laws." "Let us see. Let some demonstrations begin so we can find out what we don't know."

- Third party voting reformers generally hope that better voting methods will allow third party candidates to win occasionally. (And we hope that the general public will appreciate the greater choices of candidates that they can vote for.) Unfortunately, Australia's experience with IRV is very discouraging. They have been using it in their federal House of Representatives and state legislative assemblies for 80+ years, and those Houses are still two-party dominated. At present, only ONE of the 564 federal and state legislators chosen by IRV is a third party member. Why should it be any different here?

We already have some demonstrations of IRV in the US. Let us take the present opportunity to try Range or Approval Voting in Colorado.

Best regards,
- Jan Kok
Cofounder of RangeVoting.org

For more information:

My recent article in Fort Collins Coloradoan daily newspaper - briefly describes Approval and Range Voting, gives reasons for voting reform (suggest reading the comments also): Defective voting method defeated Paccione http://coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artic e AID=/20061125/OPINION04/611250319/ 014/CUSTOMERSERVICE02

Center for Range Voting
http://rangevoting.org

Citizens for Approval Voting and Americans for Approval Voting
http://www.approvalvoting.org/
http://www.approvalvoting.com/

Australian political site says IRV "promotes a two-party system to the detriment of minor parties and independents."
http://www.australianpolitics.com/voting/systems/preferential.shtml

The makeup of the Australian IRV elected legislatures can be understood by following these links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_%28Australia%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_State_Parliaments

A Message to IRV Fans - Look Beyond the Hype
http://rangevoting.org/IRVLetter.html

Article about Denver municipal election reform: MacKenzie's voting reform should use Range Voting http://denver.yourhub.com/Story.aspx?contentid=107610

One-hour video produced by Larimer County League of Women Voters: Instant Runoff Voting, should we adopt it?
http://fcgov.com/video -> Oct-26-2006 CrossCurrents streaming video