This post is a work in progress, and will be updated on a regular basis through June/July 2021, and sporadically after that.
Below are tools you can use when writing a letter to your state legislator, regarding: 1)addition of a Range Voting option to SB 59, or 2)voting down the entire bill. Some of these tools will seem more valuable to you than others. Pick and choose those that you feel most comfortable with.
Many of the articles are written by political scientists and are difficult for a layman to decipher. I have condensed pertinent information from such articles, and written explanatory paragraphs.
When reading the full-length articles, one should skim over the charts and attempt to glean nuggets of information from the written portions. Look for bullet points that will be easily remembered by your congressman.
Article #1: “Instant Runoff Voting: Looks Good–But Look Again” by Stephen H. Unger 3/26/2007, Columbia University. Unger’s main point is that in ranked-choice voting, the act of moving an independent candidate to the number one position is such a huge step that the voter will not do it, for fear of vote-splitting….just the same as in the traditional voting system that we currently use. So, RCV only benefits non-serious candidates whose only goal is to make a political statement. http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~unger/articles/irv.html
Here is Unger’s statement from page 4: “My current assessment is that IRV (*same as ranked-choice) would not do too badly with respect to third parties as long as they are not serious contenders for actual election victories. Supporters of such parties would be less hesitant to give them top rankings, with their “lesser evil” choice in second place. This would lead to a significant increase in votes cast for third party candidates, stimulating their growth, giving their viewpoints on issues more public exposure, and increasing their influence on the behavior of major party candidates. However, should one or more third parties grow to the point where they become serious contenders for actual election victories, the likelihood of anomalous IRV election scenarios would greatly increase. In such situations, we would be much safer with RV or AV type elections.”
06/04/2021 Update – article 2
Article #2: “The Rock Solid Case Against Ballot Measure 2” 10/28/20 by John Sturgeon. In the fourth paragraph from the end, author describes the dumping of RCV by voters in Pierce County, Washington: “…ranked choice voting kicked to the curb by 71% of the voters…” NOTE: most of this article is a lengthy description of the many faults of the system that were exposed in various cities and states. That type of information is complicated, and difficult for your congressman to remember and pass along to his associates. The 71% humiliation of RCV in Pierce County is a great bullet point that is easily remembered. https://mustreadalaska.com/the-rock-solid-case-against-ballot-measure-2/