Neutral Poll Shows Majority of Minneapolis Voters Prefer Instant Runoff Voting
November 17th, 2009On November 16, a Minnesota Public Radio/University of Minnesota poll was released, showing that 56% of Minneapolis voters say they prefer Instant Runoff Voting to the old two-round system. Minneapolis used Instant Runoff Voting for its own city elections for the first time on November 3, 2009. See this story.
November 17th, 2009 at 9:26 am
As the story points out, the percentage of those who favor IRV are even higher among those that actually used it! As I heard someone comment elsewhere, asking the opinion of IRV from those who didn’t vote is like asking for a movie review from someone who hasn’t seen the movie.
November 17th, 2009 at 9:58 am
How will the voters react if and when a Stalin or Hitler clone is elected with an IRV mighty majority mandate ???
IRV for single offices ignores most of the data in a Place Votes Table.
Of course — the MORON pollsters do NOT ask the relevant questions in polls.
P.R. and nonpartisan A.V.
November 17th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Stalin, Hitler
Stalin, Hitler
Stalin, Hitler
Son, the only 2 words I want to hear from you are “job” and “apartment”.
November 17th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
#3 is one more New Age pre-school jerk MORON impersonator — lurking in a rathole under a rock.
How about having the moderator stop the jerk MORON from posting any of his jerk stuff on this list ???
November 18th, 2009 at 4:13 am
#1 That is not accurate. If you listen to the radio broadcast, it is 56% for those who actually voted. It was 54% against among the majority of persons who did not vote.
November 18th, 2009 at 5:12 am
I can’t find any evidence that the poll was actually released, other than selective findings from the radio station that commissioned the poll.
11 of the 13 city council races had a majority winner, and the other two were within a couple of percent, such that the runners-up would have had to have a 74 to 75% plurality among transfers to overcome the deficit (eg 87%-13% with no exhausted or 74%-0% with 26% exhausted). In one race, the deficiencies in the ballot design prevented voters from expressing a 4th preference which they might have used to support the challenger.
In the mayoral race, 77% of voters voted for the incumbent. If it had been a conventional primary, the 2nd candidate to advance to the general election ballot would have done so with 10% of the vote.
So those who were polled may have been expressing opinions based on this year’s election in which a primary would have been mostly a waste of time, and in reality, even the general election was (turnout was less than 20% of registered voters).
Had it been a contested election such as the 2001 mayoral election in which no candidate had more than 34% in the primary, voters might have been more dissatisfied about not knowing the winner more than 2 weeks after the election. In 2001, turnout for the general election was twice that of 2009, and even the September 2001 primary had about 1/3 more turnout than the 2009 general election.