4 ms·

Australia didn't inherit RCV from the UK. It wasn't present among the convicts. It doesn't magically come from the water supply. It was introduced to replace FP

Australia didn't inherit RCV from the UK. It wasn't present among the convicts. It doesn't magically come from the water supply. It was introduced to replace FPTP. Again: Americans are not a different sort of human from Australians. The problem is that losers are muddying the waters, not that the water was undrinkable by American minds.

MichaelCollins 4y ago
> Again: Americans are not a different sort of human from Australians. I'm not talking about biology, I'm talking about culture. I thought I made that clear, and I'm sure you understand the distinction.
- jacques_chester 4y ago
  You're nitpicking rhetorical flair instead of refuting the point.
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    My point is that a voting system being accepted by the Australian public doesn't prove that it would be accepted by the American public, because there are cultural differences between the countries.
    - skissane 4y ago
      No denying there are many cultural differences between Australia and the US, but I think the key difference here is not cultural, rather political history. In the contemporary US, the strongest opposition to RCV comes from the political right. In Australia, RCV (or "preferential voting" as we call it) was originally introduced because – at the time – it was viewed as politically beneficial to the right. The 1918 Swan by-election (what Americans would call a "special election") was won by the centre-left Labor Party, despite only receiving a minority of the vote – because the centre-right had split into two separate parties, one with a predominantly urban base (businesspeople, professionals, etc), the other with a predominantly rural base (farmers). The conservative government introduced RCV to reduce the political advantage the centre-left had obtained through greater unity. So, maybe what RCV really needs to succeed in the US, is a split in the GOP (Trumpists vs anti-Trumpists?), so it becomes in the political self-interest of conservatives to support it.

MichaelCollins 4y ago

> Again: Americans are not a different sort of human from Australians. I'm not talking about biology, I'm talking about culture. I thought I made that clear, and I'm sure you understand the distinction.

jacques_chester 4y ago
You're nitpicking rhetorical flair instead of refuting the point.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  My point is that a voting system being accepted by the Australian public doesn't prove that it would be accepted by the American public, because there are cultural differences between the countries.
  - skissane 4y ago
    No denying there are many cultural differences between Australia and the US, but I think the key difference here is not cultural, rather political history. In the contemporary US, the strongest opposition to RCV comes from the political right. In Australia, RCV (or "preferential voting" as we call it) was originally introduced because – at the time – it was viewed as politically beneficial to the right. The 1918 Swan by-election (what Americans would call a "special election") was won by the centre-left Labor Party, despite only receiving a minority of the vote – because the centre-right had split into two separate parties, one with a predominantly urban base (businesspeople, professionals, etc), the other with a predominantly rural base (farmers). The conservative government introduced RCV to reduce the political advantage the centre-left had obtained through greater unity. So, maybe what RCV really needs to succeed in the US, is a split in the GOP (Trumpists vs anti-Trumpists?), so it becomes in the political self-interest of conservatives to support it.