Third parties endorsing IRV (Instant Runoff Voting) – the act of a suicidal idiot?

Sorry to jar you with that "suicidal idiot" remark. It was intended to connote the following 3-step process:

1. Some third parties, like the Greens, believe the voting system has to change or they will have no chance for power.
2. So they thought of switching to IRV.
3. But IRV also leads to self-reinforcing 2-party domination as is shown both theoretically, and also in practice based on about 80 years of experience in Australia, Ireland, and Malta. (And Australian political analysts simply take this fact as well known. There is no debate.)

So the Greens were good on step #1, but #2 was "idiotic" because they did not bother to find out #3. This is actually a classic logic trap (IRV sounds like it gets rid of 2-party domination, but actually it does not – that is what I mean by a "logic trap." It is an easy logic trap to extricate yourself from, though, if you just do the most incredibly simple research to find out what happened in the country – Australia – with by far the most IRV experience. But the logic trap is so appealing that the Greens did not bother to do that incredibly obvious square-one research.) And it was "suicidally" idiotic because their life as a viable political party is being sacrificed by making this wrong choice.

Remember, if you are a third party, built-in 2-party domination equals political death for you. Given that we are talking about your death – don't you think it is worth doing what it takes to understand this?

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