Hacker News

points by creata 4 days ago | 0 comments

One reason IRV is popular is that it has extensive use in other countries (Australia, Ireland). It's not revolutionary but it's an improvement and nothing terrible has happened.

STAR has been used approximately nowhere. STAR is also one of the few seriously advocated-for voting methods in which it's possible for the first choice of a majority to lose, although that isn't likely to happen in practice.

[–] joveian 3 days ago

IRV is not used in Ireland except for president, a role so procedurally minor that there is an alternative used when the president is unavailable (it seems to have evolved into what could be called an artistic role). Almost all elections are multimember (3-5 member districts); the voting is done the same way but most of the issues with IRV don't apply to the multimember version or are much less severe. In Ireland, the proprotionally elected body decides the single person roles, including things like auditor or mayor.