Upon more reflection, I think it may be a better strategy to switch from "no, IRV is shitty! We need Score Runoff" to "Yeah! Rank Choice! Instant Runoff! That's the best. And we're excited to announce we've worked out a tweak to IRV that makes it much better, so we should specify this improved version!"
The more I've considered lessons from political histories that I have connection to, the more I realize that co-opting a term and movement is more effective than setting up as an opposition movement.
I imagine reframing everything to say effectively, "instant runoff is a great concept, the only question is how to choose who gets to the runoff." And we need to give a name to the screwed up multi-round version. Maybe call it "multi-round last-place dropping" or something like that. We can describe how stupid and convoluted that is and how it introduces serious pathologies. Then say, "if we just use a score-style ballot, we can do the instant runoff in a single round, and it's easier to audit, to understand, and has far fewer problems."
Then, we should have a side-by-side chart of "2 ways to do instant runoff" with "multi-round last-place dropping (old way)" versus "score runoff (new way)".
The chart would emphasize that Score Runoff performs better per all the math and the criteria that matter, show the differences in what spoils a single ballot, etc.
In the end, we should be saying, "this is the cutting-edge best way to do rank-choice and instant-runoff" and then when people bring up IRV, instead of saying "IRV is awful…" we say, "Yeah, I'm a supporter of IRV / RCV, but we do need to make sure we use Score Runoff as the way to do the instant-runoff, that's the best FORM of IRV!"
If there's agreement on this, I propose pushing ahead ASAP and then making big announcement and working to change the way everything is talked about. Validate everyone's wishes and offer this gift of even better version rather than attack their mediocre starting point.
(For reference, one of the biggest examples here is how the term "Open Source" took over from "Free Software" and "Software Freedom" and how the latter failed big-time by setting up as an opposing movement rejecting the "Open Source" movement instead of co-opting and saying "yes, Open Source is what we need, and it's about freedom and empowerment!")
Upon more reflection, I think it may be a better strategy to switch from "no, IRV is shitty! We need Score Runoff" to "Yeah! Rank Choice! Instant Runoff! That's the best. And we're excited to announce we've worked out a tweak to IRV that makes it much better, so we should specify this improved version!"
The more I've considered lessons from political histories that I have connection to, the more I realize that co-opting a term and movement is more effective than setting up as an opposition movement.
I imagine reframing everything to say effectively, "instant runoff is a great concept, the only question is how to choose who gets to the runoff." And we need to give a name to the screwed up multi-round version. Maybe call it "multi-round last-place dropping" or something like that. We can describe how stupid and convoluted that is and how it introduces serious pathologies. Then say, "if we just use a score-style ballot, we can do the instant runoff in a single round, and it's easier to audit, to understand, and has far fewer problems."
Then, we should have a side-by-side chart of "2 ways to do instant runoff" with "multi-round last-place dropping (old way)" versus "score runoff (new way)".
The chart would emphasize that Score Runoff performs better per all the math and the criteria that matter, show the differences in what spoils a single ballot, etc.
In the end, we should be saying, "this is the cutting-edge best way to do rank-choice and instant-runoff" and then when people bring up IRV, instead of saying "IRV is awful…" we say, "Yeah, I'm a supporter of IRV / RCV, but we do need to make sure we use Score Runoff as the way to do the instant-runoff, that's the best FORM of IRV!"
If there's agreement on this, I propose pushing ahead ASAP and then making big announcement and working to change the way everything is talked about. Validate everyone's wishes and offer this gift of even better version rather than attack their mediocre starting point.
(For reference, one of the biggest examples here is how the term "Open Source" took over from "Free Software" and "Software Freedom" and how the latter failed big-time by setting up as an opposing movement rejecting the "Open Source" movement instead of co-opting and saying "yes, Open Source is what we need, and it's about freedom and empowerment!")