[fvc-wat-disc] Material for door to door discussions

Jay Judkowitz judkowitz at gmail.com
Thu Aug 15 14:52:50 EDT 2019


FairVoters,

     I had to explain PR to my 10 year old daughter after our last meeting
and came up with this two tab spreadsheet (which can easily be printed out
on a single sheet 8.5x11 sheet of paper - one tab per side).  I was
thinking that something like this could help us guide door to door
conversations if we decide to take that route.  I'd love your feedback on
this idea generally, and the content specifically.

     Tab 1
<https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xyUjwYo6TpwejEdCXbSxm11ooXFACKQAFIoZ3_mMqrg/edit#gid=1710981120>
is
a setup.  It's the results of an election in a mythical country with 11
ridings and 21,000 people in each riding.  Each cell is 1000 votes.  Tab 1
asks four questions of the listener about what they thought would be fair
and democratic.  There is no pitch for PR at this point and no criticism of
FPTP.  Just try to get people's gut feel on the questions.  (My daughter's
gut feel on what would be fair and good aligned with our values for PR)

     Tab 2
<https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xyUjwYo6TpwejEdCXbSxm11ooXFACKQAFIoZ3_mMqrg/edit#gid=0>
is
the results with FPTP and PR.  It shows the distortion of FPTP and explains
why that's bad.  And, the whole 39% of the votes = 100% of the power is
exactly what happened in 2011 and 2015 as we know.  Now presumably, the
listeners answered the questions reasonably in the first tab and will be
shocked by the results in the second tab.  Then we explain how PR can get
more closely aligned to their expectations of fairness and democracy.

      What do you think of that approach of engaging with people - starting
with the questions and letting them come to the conclusion that FPTP sucks
on their own?

Thanks,
Jay
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