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> Much of the issue here is because of lack of understanding of the perspective of the other side.

This sums up pretty much every political debate ever.

Absolutely true. And the first-past-the-post voting system in America amplifies the us-vs-them mentality that has created political gridlock for nearly a decade now.

Thats been my biggest takeaway from this entire election: we need to implement "Instant Runoff Voting" as the way we vote in this country.

http://fairvote.org/

Sadly most Americans will fail to understand why IRV would be good or even how it works.

Case in point: http://www.fairvote.org/lessons-from-burlington

Disagree. IRV introduces some bizarre nonlinearities in the voting space that could lead to shockingly unintuitive behaviour. See these voting simulations for an example:

http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/

A better system would be something like approval voting, or condorcet, both described in the above link.

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