The December 10 issue of the Los Angles Times has this op-ed, in support of Instant-Runoff Voting, authored by Blair Bobier.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
The December 10 issue of the Los Angles Times has this op-ed, in support of Instant-Runoff Voting, authored by Blair Bobier.
Why has IRV overtaken every other alternative method of voting as the most popular?
Because it’s the best method for single-office positions.
Proportional rep would be better for legislatures and councils, but that seems like too much of a leap for policymakers. So in that case IRV is hopefully a first step.
Hey I know of a really cool website called the voting site . The sites mission is to evangelize the instant run off voting. Users can create there own instant run off elections and vote in other peoples instant run off elections. The site does a good job of showing how instant run off voting works.
Well, I think because IRV does not abandon the two-party system, as it were, it tends to gain more support among Democrats and Republicans. Which is necessary to get anything done.
IRV is certainly not a perfect voting method, none are, but it can address the ‘spoilage’ concern.
Instant Runoff Voting has a long tradition in the nation and has been upheld in US Courts.
#1 Instant runoff voting sounds sexy. Compare instant potatoes, instant pudding, instant gratification – it is very American. Nobody else in the World calls it IRV.
IRV supporters always point out Ireland and Australia as users of IRV. But Ireland only uses IRV for the President, which is a relatively meaningless office. Australia only uses “IRV” for one house of parliament.
When IRV was voted on in San Francisco, supporters argued that it was different than the system that had been rejected at the previous election (for multi-member STV), but also argued that it was a system used in Australia and Ireland.
They like it because it avoids the issue of primaries. The big 2 parties can simply each put up a candidate, and ensure that one will be elected. In fact the two major parties probably support it more since they can get rid of spoilers, and they can portray 3rd party voters as causing the waste of public money if there is a conventional runoff.
If there was a real commitment to runoff voting, there would be no reason to have primaries. Primaries simply prevent voters from expressing their actual preference in the general election. Extending IRV to primaries really doesn’t address the problem.
A conventional runoff permits voters to focus on the candidates in the runoff, instead of randomly ranking candidates in the general election (and in many cases IRV restricts voters to 3 preferences – mainly to accommodate primitive voting machines)