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Comment by s_dev | Hacker News Reader

Ireland uses this appraoch. We call it STV.

STV Explained -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8XOZJkozfI

It just a better democracy because it's more representative.

It's solves the "wasted vote" problem people have with democracy and why many democracies result in a two party system. This way it ensures your vote is counted and multiple parties exist.

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Actually, that's a form of Proportional Representation. What's being adopted by NY still results in one winner, not a percentage of seats awarded based on the percentage of votes a party got.

Instant Runoff Voting is essentially STV in the degenerate case of single seat constituencies rather than multi-member ones. So you're both right! It is in some sense the same system, but it plays very differently in that the results are majoritarian rather than proportional.

Generally, I think it's accepted that IRV is a good choice for multi-member elections. But for these kinds of US single-winner elections, that's where its flaws come out.

It seems to work fine for the Irish presidential elections, which are single winner.

The Irish presidency is almost entirely a ceremonial role.

I'd also highly recommend "Tweak the Vote" from Radiolab, which discusses Ireland's election process: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/tweak...

Scotland also uses STV (Single Transferable Vote), though also participates in FPTP (First Past the Post) for UK wide elections.

NI too. I would love to see STV used for Parliament so that possibly someone other then DUP or Sinn Fein could make it in.

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