this "declaration" is suffering from exactly what everybody most-complains about re the rangevoting.org website.
I.e. it tried to cover everything and got large. In fact, enormous. That for a website is a flaw that is not necessarily an insurmountable obstacle since one can put short "summary" pages (or try...) and use of lots of hyperlinks, so it isn't just a flat document, it's easier to get to information. But for a "consensus statement" it is a major problem since (a) nobody is going to sign it and (b) nobody is going to read it. Well, "nobody" is an exaggeration. But not by much. This statement (4328 words) is now over 3 times the length of the USA's "Declaration of Independence" (1315 words) and also longer than the entire USA constitution (as un-amended) at 4318 words. Have you seen my attempt to study what election experts and/or Joe Public actually agree on? The total amount of true consensus out there, is extremely small. So you could have an extremely short statement, if you wished to summarize what is the current consensus. If you have the more ambitious goal of creating consensus by actually changing minds... well, I doubt you can do it with one single document. It's very hard to get people to sign statements, and the difficulty increases with the length. ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
