Maybe it's time to give I.R.V. a try, at least in Philly municipal-level elections, to show the state why the idea has merit?
... the Presidential candidate of America’s Green Party in 2000, Ralph Nader, got about 2.7 per cent.
For the past seven years, Americans (and the world) have been suffering from the head-pounding hangover of that 2.7 per cent: President George W. Bush. Even though a clear majority of us — 51 per cent — wanted a left-of-center government, we got, with the help of a little nudge from the Supreme Court, a very, very right-of-center one.
In Australia, the consequence was precisely the opposite.
and
In the United States, instant runoff voting has been bubbling under the surface, down where the grass roots grow. Last month, Aspen, Colorado, and Sarasota, Florida, became the latest jurisdictions to adopt it.
Around the world
IRV systems work great around the world, and could really revolutionize the way elections work here. I would be very interested in creating some form of IRV for Philly municipal elections. The Irish system is also one that is worthy of emulation.
The biggest problem I see with a voting system like that is the American ballots generally have more candidates and questions on them than those in other countries. If we complicate the ballot further it might discourage people from showing up at the polls.
My job is not to represent Washington to you, but to represent you to Washington.-Barack Obama
Philly for Obama
IRV facts and fiction
While it's clear that our traditional "vote for one" (plurality) voting system is inexcusable, Instant Runoff Voting is not much better - and there are many better simpler solutions. There is also a great deal of public misunderstanding and misinformation surrounding IRV, largely the result of the IRV propaganda organization, FairVote.
One common myth is that IRV elects "majority winners". But IRV can lead to the election of candidate X, even when candidate Y is preferred to X by a huge majority. Consider this hypothetical IRV election.
#voters - their vote
10 G > C > P > M
3 C > G > P > M
5 C > P > M > G
6 M > P > C > G
4 P > M > C > G
C is the clear Condorcet (condor-SAY) winner, meaning he is preferred by a landslide majority over all his individual rivals. He is preferred over G, P, and M all by an 18-10 margin.
But... M wins, even though he also has fewer first-place votes (6 voters) than C with 8.
Also:
1. P is preferred to M by 22 of the 28 voters, yet he's the first candidate eliminated.
2. G also has more first-place votes (10) than M's 6.
3. So M either loses pairwise to, or has fewer first-place votes than (or both) every rival, but still IRV elects M.
Notice that the first group of voters could have caused C to win if they had only "lied", and put him first in their list. That would mean they'd get their second favorite instead of their fourth favorite. Statistical analysis reveals that this strategy is advised for all candidates who don't appear to have at least a 20% chance of winning. That means that, contrary to FairVote propaganda, IRV does not let you "vote your hopes, not your fears". And this means that IRV effectively degrades toward plain old plurality (vote-for-one) voting. This is explained in more detail here, by math experts:
http://rangevoting.org/TarrIrv.html
Election integrity experts and activists, like computer science Ph.D. Rebecca Mercuri disapprove of IRV because it is conducive to the adoption of fraud-susceptible electronic voting machines. IRV is also more susceptible to fraud because it is not countable in precincts. That is, candidate A could win every individual precinct, but bizarrely lose when the ballots are all summed together - which enforces centralized tabulation, which is more susceptible to central fraud conspiracy. And IRV typically causes spoiled ballots to go up by a factor of about 7.
http://rangevoting.org/SPRates.html
A much simpler and far better system is Approval Voting. It's just like the current system, except that there is no limit on the number of candidates one may vote for. While it may seem initially less intuitive than ranking choices, deep scrutiny shows that Approval Voting produces a far more representative outcome, and is less harmed by problems like strategic voting. This is shown through an objective economic measure called Bayesian regret, which shows how well a particular voting method tends to satisfy the preferences of the voters. The improvement gotten by Approval Voting relative to IRV is especially large if the voters are strategic, as was described above (although FairVote promoters will often falsely claim that the best strategy with Approval Voting is to "bullet vote"). See:
http://rangevoting.org/BayRegDum.html
If we don't mind a somewhat more cluttered ballot, we can upgrade to Range Voting, which uses a ratings scale, like Olympics scoring. It is arguably more intuitive, and produces phenomenal Bayesian regret results, meaning more satisfied voters, and more competitive nominees, if used for a party's nomination process (i.e. a big strategic advantage).
For a look at how the major parties could become dramatically more competitive by merely adopting Range Voting or Approval Voting, see:
http://rangevoting.org/ForDems.html
http://rangevoting.org/ForReps.html
Election reformers must be diligent and do their research. Don't be misled by FairVote's clever marketing. Look at what Ivy League mathematicians and political science experts such as Steve Brams, who write entire books on this stuff, say. Check out Gaming the Vote, by William Poundstone. FairVote has an agenda, and it's definitely not in the pubic's best interest.
Clay Shentrup
San Francisco, CA
415.240.1973
clay@electopia.org