I am with you. Something must be done. PR is easier to explain to people. Heck, IRV makes my head spin.

click on this link or copy & paste

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Australian_Legislative_Council

The state of South Australia uses some type of IRV in their upper house. They have six different political parties represented. The two major parties have 36% each of the chamber’s seats. Power is divided. No one-party dictatorships.

Yes, PR is the most important goal. But:

(1) We have a lot of executive office elections in this country, and we need IRV for those regardless of how we elect our legislatures.

(2) Your suggestion of multi-seat districts in which the top N vote getters win is actually worse than plurality elections in single-member districts. What happens is that the largest relatively cohesive block of voters gets all the seats, and the rest of the voters risk getting nothing. In order to get proportional results, you need ranked ballots — just like IRV except to fill several seats. This is called “choice voting” in the U.S. and the “single transferable vote” everywhere else. AB 1121 allows choice voting for at large city councils (up to 10 for a 10 year period).

But how about larger more regional districts where let’s say the top 5 vote getters win? Any minor party with something on the ball should be able to come in 4th or 5th and win.

P.R. and A.V. NOW — regardless of the super math defective IRV.