Advocacy organizations — who champions each method¶
Each major single-winner reform has a national organization behind it. Knowing who advocates for what helps you read the literature: comparison pages are usually written by one of these groups and lean toward the method it champions (see RCV-IRV vs STAR — reading advocacy sources).
| Method | Organization | Site | In one line |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ranked Choice Voting (RCV-IRV) | FairVote | fairvote.org | Popularized the "RCV" brand for instant-runoff voting; the largest, oldest US reform group. |
| Approval Voting | The Center for Election Science (CES) | electionscience.org | Champions Approval as the simplest high-impact upgrade; backed the Fargo and St. Louis wins. |
| STAR Voting | Equal Vote Coalition | equal.vote | Developed and advocates STAR (Score Then Automatic Runoff); home of the "equally weighted vote" standard. Also promotes Ranked Robin as the ranked-ballot option. |
| Consensus Choice (Condorcet) | Better Choices for Democracy | betterchoices.vote | Newer group advocating a Condorcet method under the "Consensus Choice" brand, packaged with an open qualifying election sending 4+ candidates to the general. |
Notes on the terminology¶
"RCV" is a ballot (ranked), and FairVote's usage made it a near-synonym for one tabulation of that ballot — instant-runoff voting (IRV). That's why this repo writes RCV-IRV when precision matters: other tabulations of the same ranked ballot (Ranked Robin, STV) are not what "RCV" colloquially means. Background: why the name is confusing.
STAR and the Equal Vote Coalition grew out of the same community; the consumer-facing STAR campaign also operates as STAR Voting (starvoting.org).
Two brands, one Condorcet method. Equal Vote's Ranked Robin and Better Choices' Consensus Choice are the same core count (Copeland — every pair head-to-head, most wins). They differ in their cycle tiebreak and in proposal scope, not in the ballot or the basic tally: Ranked Robin vs. Consensus Choice. Note this means Equal Vote appears twice in the table above — it champions STAR and a Condorcet option, which is unusual among these groups.
Beyond the three¶
Score/Range voting has no single dominant US campaign; its main hub is the Center for Range Voting (see the repo's Range / Score overview). Broader reform coalitions (e.g. RepresentUS, Unite America) back multiple methods rather than one.
Reading advocacy claims critically — a worked example¶
Advocacy pages (from every camp) mix solid points with overreach. The repo's worked example of checking one claim by claim: FairVote's Condorcet article, claim-checked — each quote verified, each checkable claim tabulated as a small election you can re-run.
The check cuts the other way too: Do the experts really think RCV-IRV is "bad"? grades the popular pro-cardinal claim that "the voting scientists have proven RCV-IRV inferior" — noting that the most-cited experts (Smith, Brams, Quinn) are themselves advocates, and separating what the math proves from what it doesn't.
The people behind these methods — foundational theorists and modern advocates alike, with affiliations disclosed — are collected in Who's who in voting methods.
These descriptions are the organizations' own emphases, not endorsements. Verify current campaigns and results on each site — advocacy priorities change.