I fully agree with CES’s decision not to commit any more resources in Denver or Broomfield. I also agree that “approval voting can thrive as a candidate and be implemented so that it may be tested alongside IRV”, though I expect that most of this thriving will occur in places like Fargo where technical challenges prevent the implementation of IRV (or even STAR).
However, it’s far too soon to dismiss the chances of STAR voting catching on. Getting it adopted in the first city will be the hardest since it doesn’t have much of a track record. Portland didn’t actually get to vote on it (they failed to get it onto the ballot due to a lack of funds), and the election where it was rejected occurred in Lane County, OR, where it still got 47.6% of the vote. Had they only tried to get STAR voting in the city of Eugene (the largest city in Lane County) they would have almost certainly succeeded; as you noted, “voting methods poll much, much better in cities”, and it received over 70% of the vote where STAR advocates had done most of their campaigning (mainly in Eugene). Subsequent efforts to get STAR voting on the ballot in Eugene have been stymied by the pandemic and by some of the signatures they collected being wrongly rejected, but it’s going to happen sooner or later and STAR voting is highly likely to pass when it does.
I don’t blame you for dismissing Condorcet though; I’m in a very small minority in viewing it as politically viable and I don’t know of anyone else who has written about why it can catch on.
I fully agree with CES’s decision not to commit any more resources in Denver or Broomfield. I also agree that “approval voting can thrive as a candidate and be implemented so that it may be tested alongside IRV”, though I expect that most of this thriving will occur in places like Fargo where technical challenges prevent the implementation of IRV (or even STAR).
However, it’s far too soon to dismiss the chances of STAR voting catching on. Getting it adopted in the first city will be the hardest since it doesn’t have much of a track record. Portland didn’t actually get to vote on it (they failed to get it onto the ballot due to a lack of funds), and the election where it was rejected occurred in Lane County, OR, where it still got 47.6% of the vote. Had they only tried to get STAR voting in the city of Eugene (the largest city in Lane County) they would have almost certainly succeeded; as you noted, “voting methods poll much, much better in cities”, and it received over 70% of the vote where STAR advocates had done most of their campaigning (mainly in Eugene). Subsequent efforts to get STAR voting on the ballot in Eugene have been stymied by the pandemic and by some of the signatures they collected being wrongly rejected, but it’s going to happen sooner or later and STAR voting is highly likely to pass when it does.
I don’t blame you for dismissing Condorcet though; I’m in a very small minority in viewing it as politically viable and I don’t know of anyone else who has written about why it can catch on.