@Apollo98 @mastodonmigration @Remittancegirl I ran in (and won) a ranked choice election way back in year 2000.

The various ranked choice/instant runoff systems are good, but there are some caveats.

The biggest of which is that many people simply do not understand it. In my election most voters had tech. backgrounds but even then many did not get it or thought that it could be gamed

(Indeed, we did find a way to weakly game the vote - which was to run 3 candidates - we did not really care with one among us won - as a team with small differences between our platforms.)

A second problem is that as the votes are counted the "winner" at any instant can dramatically change with just a few additional votes being counted. That tends to make people distrust the system.

Another problem is that one can't easily tally up precinct counts and think that those represent the outcome - at least not until all of the votes have arrived. That tends to mean no believable late-election-night results.

@mastodonmigration @Remittancegirl Here in California there is a twist - our primary system is such that all the candidates of all parties are combined onto a single primary ballot. The top two vote-getters move on to the general election.

This puts a premium on unity going into the primary. The D-party could find itself locked out of the general election if the D-party fields many candidates who divide the D-vote while the R-s focus on two candidates and only two candidates.

https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/primary-elections-california

@Soozcat @per_sonne @SmudgeTheInsultCat Trump gets confused and conflates Greenland with Graceland.

@heidilifeldman I wrote about this, and some ways to cure it. We had a chance to do this during the Biden era but now it would take Congress passing a law and overriding a veto.)

"Do We Need Rubber Rooms for Federal Judges? Two Plans To Reduce The Long Tailed Impact of Trump Judicial Appointees"

https://www.cavebear.com/cavebear-blog/rubber-rooms/

@MikeImBack @MostlyHarmless Donald's kids aren't that smart.

By-the-way, every person in the US - man, woman, child - is paying about $100 each year for ICE.

I've been beaten by the LAPD. I lived in Berkeley in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I've been tear gassed and watched police push people backwards off of highway overpasses. I knew and understood many Black Panthers.

I am sick and tired of Kumbaya songs. I am sick and tired of turn-the-other-cheek reactions to current affairs in the US.

But I am also a lawyer, sworn to peaceful methods.

What do I do?

What strikes me is the age old method of ostracism - practiced in ancient Athens, written about in plays like Lysistrata, and rendered into strong force by churches through the practice of excommunication.

We ought to perform civil excommunication on ICE agents - do not sell or rent products to them in stores, do not rent hotel rooms to them, do not fund them, treat them like modern day lepers. Businesses should make it clear that they will never be hired for a job. Do not adopt Jesus' policy of acceptance of them.

Spread their names so that we may cut them off from society.