Not just on HN but in real life too. In the UK we had a referendum on switching to a ranked voting system known as "AV" a few years back. It was defeated with 6

Not just on HN but in real life too. In the UK we had a referendum on switching to a ranked voting system known as "AV" a few years back. It was defeated with 68% voting against. Of the people I asked, the older more politically conservative people opposed it because of the perception that it would make it more difficult for their party of choice to win (I heard this argument on both sides of the political spectrum) and the younger, more liberal voters opposed it because it "wasn't good enough". Less than half of the population even bothered to participate. So we're still stuck with FPTP. The only chance we've had to completely overhaul our election system and people voted overwhelmingly against it. Ho hum...