You can buy it here or download a free PDF version. I am working through the book and enjoying most of it.
Chapter 2 is an extended and thoughtful discussion of what I would call different allocation rules for electing single winners from ranked ballots. Chapter 3 covers proportional representation from the perspective of district magnitude. That emphasis makes sense in view of the skepticism with which the book’s editors have regarded PR in the past.
My one complaint concerns the handling of my own book, which attempted to do three things:
- Explain the repeal of PR, which is rare.
- Explain the adoption of PR absent multiparty politics, which also is rare.
- Come up with a persuasive (read: generalizable) theory of how electoral rules change.
In the process, I had to get a sense of the role that “instant runoff” played. That led to a need to have coherent ideas about why roughly 90 such systems ended up repealed, 11 of which were used in statewide nominating primaries.
My answer was that these systems do not work over the long run without a multiparty system to support them, including by facilitating the adoption of auxiliary rules (compulsory ranking, ticket voting, seat bonuses, etc).
ERUS reduces the book to a study of STV in local elections. I get this a lot, both from doctrinaire reformers and the church of Schattschneider (1942).