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Instant Runoff Voting

Upchurch

Papa Funkosophy
Upchurch
Joined
May 10, 2002
Messages
34,265
Location
St. Louis, MO
The July 29, 2007 episode of Media Matters with Bob McChesney (not to be confused with the other Media Matters) featured 2004 Green Party Presidential Candidate, David Cobb.

What really interested me was their discussion of instant runoff voting (IRV). I'd heard the term before but never really knew anything about it. Instead of one vote per person, everyone ranks the candidates for a position in order of their preference. Their first choice gets a "1", their second choice gets a "2", and so on. As the votes are tabulated, the 1's are counted up first. If nobody has over 50% of the votes, the last place candidate is dropped and the second choice of the people who voted for him/her is counted. The process is continued until someone gets over 50% of the vote.

According to Cobb, this method is being used in various places in the US now for state and local elections with all sorts of positive response. I have no idea if what he says about the feedback is true, but I'm willing to believe it is being tried.

Of course, as a former third party candidate, he is all for it since it means that people can vote for third party candidates and not "waste their vote".

Anyone else know more about this or have another opinion about it?
 
And you guys thought there was (rhymes with itching) with problems with a simple pick-one-candidate problems in 2000. Yeesh!
 
Beerina said:
And you guys thought there was (rhymes with itching) with problems with a simple pick-one-candidate problems in 2000. Yeesh!
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Unless these ballots are going to be as poorly designed, I don't see a parallel.
 
Upchurch said:
The July 29, 2007 episode of Media Matters with Bob McChesney (not to be confused with the other Media Matters) featured 2004 Green Party Presidential Candidate, David Cobb.

What really interested me was their discussion of instant runoff voting (IRV). I'd heard the term before but never really knew anything about it. Instead of one vote per person, everyone ranks the candidates for a position in order of their preference. Their first choice gets a "1", their second choice gets a "2", and so on. As the votes are tabulated, the 1's are counted up first. If nobody has over 50% of the votes, the last place candidate is dropped and the second choice of the people who voted for him/her is counted. The process is continued until someone gets over 50% of the vote.

According to Cobb, this method is being used in various places in the US now for state and local elections with all sorts of positive response. I have no idea if what he says about the feedback is true, but I'm willing to believe it is being tried.

Of course, as a former third party candidate, he is all for it since it means that people can vote for third party candidates and not "waste their vote".

Anyone else know more about this or have another opinion about it?
Click to expand...
I've long been in favor of such a system. The main benefit is not so much that it prevents costly run-offs (though it does that too) but that it strongly empowers third-party candidates. In the current system, lesser candidates can't drum up votes because nodody wants to "throw their vote away". This system ensures that even if their preferred candidate lost, it wouldn't take the vote away from their second-favorite candidate. As I understand, Australia uses this system a lot.

But, and it's a big "but", this is unlikely to happen in the US. The obvious reason is that the two main parties don't want to empower third-party candidates. They much prefer to stack the deck against them by keeping the present system. So no change like this is ever going to get out of committee, much less come to a vote, and it is a great pity.
 
It would be a great way to bring American democracy into the 19th century.
 
Tricky said:
But, and it's a big "but", this is unlikely to happen in the US. The obvious reason is that the two main parties don't want to empower third-party candidates. They much prefer to stack the deck against them by keeping the present system. So no change like this is ever going to get out of committee, much less come to a vote, and it is a great pity.
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When the people who can change the system are in power because of it, change isn't a reasonable expectation.
 
I prefer range voting, personally. Voters rank the candidates on a scale from 1 - 10 (or whatever numbers) and whoever gets the highest average vote wins. It's both simpler to implement (scoring people on a scale from 1-10 is a lot easier to understand than giving them relative ranks) and it avoids most of the subtle flaws of IRV. Although range voting can't really do proportional representation, so IRV might be a good way of doing that.

But yeah, I do agree with the general idea that first past the post screws over third parties disproportionately. Although I imagine there might be more to it than just the voting system, since Canada and the United Kingdom have first past the post yet they have comparatively strong third parties. (I have heard part of it is that the presidential system also encourages a two party system.)
 
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It is widely used in Australia.

We use both optional preferential voting and compulsory preferential voting. With compulsory preferential voting you have to place a number beside each candidate, with optional voting you can stop at any point.

There are problems with mixing the two systems in the same area (i.e. havinb different systems for state and federal elections) and for first time voters (particularly non-English speakers).

Australian elections are run by commissions that are very strong, centralised and non-partisan. They do a good job registering voters as well as advertising elections and voting methods.
 
Beerina said:
And you guys thought there was (rhymes with itching) with problems with a simple pick-one-candidate problems in 2000. Yeesh!
Click to expand...

Solution:

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Tricky said:
But, and it's a big "but", this is unlikely to happen in the US.
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Well, says who? Cobb pointed out that in the Presidential race, the feds don't control the local voting procedure. The states do. I could see it happen on a state level much more easily than a change like this on a national level, just like you are more likely to see third party candidates win on local and state levels.

I'm really interested in this kind of idea. It feels like it is much more in the spirit of discourse and democracy that you learn as a kid but never really see as an adult.
 
I have been wrong about so much in my 57 years of attempted predictions that I hesitate to make another one, but here it is:

There will not be any changes to US election systems that would have the effect of weakening the grip of the major US political parties on power.
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A major effort to reduce the impact of gerrymandering was made in California and it was beaten back by the coordinated efforts of Democratic party beneficiaries. There are deeply embedded, powerful entities in the US which benefit from the US political system and they will fight to maintain the system that benefits them.

Some kind of IRV system could be of huge benefit to constraining the excesses of both parties but is there a mainstream politician who would work to implement an IRV system? Maybe the last six years have jaded my opinions beyond reality, but it looks to me like the political landscape is dominated by deeply cynical people whose main goal in life is to continue to be reelected and to continue to receive the benefits that their office makes available to them. A politician that would do anything to jeopardize that is at best very rare.

Although, it dampens my cynicism a bit to see that the Democratically controlled house has just passed some reforms that might reduce some of the under the table bennies that flow their way.
 
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GodMark2 said:
Problem
View attachment 7909

Never underestimate the capacity for stupidity in a human.
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I personally like the Condorcet method of voting better than IRV. It can handle the ballot that you have shown without problem. It could be a valid ballot, with the voter liking one canditate better than all others, then having 3 candidates that they have no reason for discriminating between, and one candidate that they certainly do not want.
 
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