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Comment by wslack | Hacker News Reader

That's true - but approaches that identify those best compromises get mathematically more and more complex as the system gains fidelity.

We shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. If a place wants to implement another voting system, I'd be interested to see how it plays out, and if the voters see the winner with legitimacy.

IRV is relatively simple and candidates in NY are still attacking it because of the complexity it has over FPTP.

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You don't get a lot of chances to change the voting system. Tacoma, WA changed to IRV for a while, but it didn't make any difference in who got elected, then they threw it out a few years later. Good luck getting a better system in place now.

Did they eliminate the primary process? The real value of IRV (IMO) is when you can have a Sanders and a Clinton (or a Trump and a Rubio) both on a general election ballot.

It appears they did, from https://www.sightline.org/2017/09/19/what-really-happened-wi...

"In a single high-turnout election in November, voters could rank any candidates they wanted, regardless of party."

I think approval voting is both simpler and better at finding compromise, though it does have other weaknesses. There will always be tradeoffs, and perfect ... good ... etc, as you say. I just worry that IRV in particular might not actually be good.

Approval voting is much simpler than IRV, and is also better at electing good compromise candidates.

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