Publius: Thank you for being a faithful reader. However, I am far from gaining any serious traction. My last four TDG articles got 7, 16, 16, and 17 views. This article is sitting at 39--and there are few more days before it goes stale. I am estimating about 75. Why this article gets four times my usual average, I cannot say why.
I rechecked my following list: you are on this list. But I have not seen an article of yours for ages. I could say that this is more evidence that the Medium algorithms are giving many of us a less than a fair shake in showing up in the feeds. But it seems you have published very little in the last year.
-----------
I went to your fairelection link. I will say that in a close election, a different result is possible with a different way to count the ballots. But the bigger result is still there.
But with different rules, election strategies would have changed. For example, Ms. Clinton would have spent more time in California trying to turn a 55-45 split to a 60-40 split. This electoral return would be bigger than trying to change a 49-51 split in Arizona to a 51-49 split. Whether this is better for American democracy is another discussion.
Had the 2016 president gone to Ms. Clinton, the message to the Republicans would have been: "If someone like Mr. Trump got 48% of the vote, we just might win next time."
The American system failed to filter Mr. Trump out at the Republican primary. He came close to winning the popular vote in the general election in 2016. It's not that he won/lost. It's that he was a viable contender. If he wins the R primary, he will be a viable contender in 2024--even if he is on his death bed.
That is the problem that needs to be solved. Changing the EC to PV is not going to address this issue.
In my book, I list 12 limitations of western democracy. These limitations are part of all modern, mature democracies. Changing the US presidential race from EC to PV will not address one of these limitations.
--------------
When I look at the history of the 17th amendment, I see a 30-year process to move from a serious constitutional challenge to actually affecting the result.
The USA might be somewhere on a similar path for the EC and for rank choice voting. If history is right, the change will happen quite fast, but it was a result of a long term pressure.
My take is that if advocates are prepared for the long game, why not just play the long game for the TDG?
