Submitted by Rob Richie, Mar 27, 2007 18:56

Great to see Richard Davis and RIchard Dadey highlight this important issue of filling vacances and pick up on the value of instant runoff voting (IRV) as it gather steam around the countr. IRV is working, voters are enthusiastic about it, and it speaks directly to real problems with our politics.

As to Clay Shentrup's post, he defines "majority" in a way that is inconsistent with political realities. For clarity about how IRV works to elect a majority winner, consider the form of IRV that some jurisdictions have adopted in which there is a second round of counting between the top two finishers in the first round. This system exactly simulates what would happen a runoff election was held on the same day with the same voters.

In this form of IRV, if no candidate wins an initial majority of first choices, the top two candidates advance, and the ballots cast first for the eliminated candidates are added to whichever runoff candidate is ranked next on each ballot .The more popular runoff candidate will ALWAYS win with a majority of the vote in the second runoff round.

To me, this sounds like "majority rule" in contrast to a system where the winner can be a candidate only elected due to a split of the votes between the second and third place candidate. Perhaps a low-rated candidate with 5% in the first round theoretically could win a runoff if that candidate had reached the runoff, but I don't believe a candidate with 5% hasn't earned a shot at the runoff. They lack the core support necessary to be a strong representative or a true leader to represent the other 95% of voters.

Forms of IRV that only eliminate one candidate at a time act within this same understanding of politics. First, it's important to have core support. It shows seriousness and readiness to represent people. Second, you don't want a strong candidate's victory "spoiled" because of split votes.

On the other hand, Shentrup's range voting would make a mockery of our understanding of majority rule. It would allow an intensely supported candidate with 35% support (or less) in our current system able to defeat a candidate with 65% support. Voters who did not nderstand the importance of voting tactically (e.g., the importance of giving artificially low ratings to candidates other than your preferred choice) would lose out to tactical voters who gave the top score to their favorite and a zero to everyone else. Corrupt figure skating judges have liked range voting at the Olympics, but not too many other folks will want to see it in real elections for real offices.

IRV is an absolute no-brainer for vacancies and races like New York City's citywide primaries that now have two-round runoffs. For more, see www.fairvote.org/irv

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