Instant Runoff Voting

There had been considerable debate (IMO at best marginally on topic) on alternative voting systems, at the Activist Courts vs Oppressive Gov't topic. As I type this, it is currently at message 42.There, much of the debate has been on variations on the Borda system. The pure variation of the Borda system is such as used in ranking the top 20 college sport teams in U.S. polls. The voters select their top 20 picks in order of 1 through 20. A number 1 pick gets 20 points, the number 2 pick gets 19 points, , and the number 20 pick gets 1 point. Tally up the points and you have the rankings. In its ideal form, a good system as long as the voters give honest (and informed) opinions. There are other complications also. Please see the above cited topic for the discussion of the Borda system.The better system is that of the "instant runoff". In such, likewise the voters rank their choices in order of preference.The voter lists his/her choices in order of preference. As I see it, they could only pick, say, their top 5 even if more candidates are on the ballot. Then the number one choices are tallied. If one candidate gets a majority of the votes, that candidate is the winner, without the runoff procedure having to kick in.If one candidate does not get a majority of the votes, then the candidate with the fewest number of "first choice" votes is eliminated. For the voters having made that choice, their number two choice becomes their number one choice, and the vote is re-tallied. This continues until a candidate gets the majority of the number one picks.Ideally, this would be best if the tallying was done nation wide. It, however, could also be done on a state by state basis, through which the states could determine their electoral votes.Of course this method is quite data processing heavy. It would probably actually work best on the smaller scale - within the individual states.Using this system, in the 2000 U.S. presidential elections, the Green Party voter could vote for Ralph Nader as their number one choice, and vote for Al Gore as their number two choice. In the runoff system, Ralph Nader presumably would eventually be eliminated with his votes then going to Al Gore.Likewise, this system could well have made a difference in the Bush Sr./Clinton election. The question there would be, how many Perot voters had Bush as their alternative choice, and how many had Clinton as their alternative choice.MooseThis message has been edited by minnemooseus, 09-05-2004 02:38 PM

I'm sorry but I was not quite clear on the method you were explaining.Voters vote by ranking their top five choices and then if there is a percentage majority (>50%) for one of them being chosen as first choice then he is chosen? And if not (so: <50%) then the candidate with the fewest first choice votes is eliminated and the people with that person as first choice get their second choice moved to first, and we look again to see who has >50% of the first choice votes.. etc etc?While I am not totally against such a system, I am not quite won over by its being better than the borda method (normal, or the one that RAZD came up with). I am also a bit nervous that people's second choices may tend to overwhelm a candidate that not only had more first, but perhaps second choice votes, only those voters were not in the "losing" group consistently enough.Does this make sense? Imagine there is a popular candidate that got way more 1st and 2nd choice votes than an opponent, but because of the way other candidates were picked off a guy with more 2nd and 3rd choice votes suddenly appears to have the majority of 1st votes.Or maybe I am imagining something that couldn't happen? I feel I should point out that under ANY voting system other than the one we have (nonproportional nondirect electoral) Gore would have won. And that is with Jeb and SC finagling... and ALL the Nader votes.Nader's impact was not felt on the proportional level at all.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Arrow's Impossibility Theorem shows that every possible voting system is going to have it's problems. The idea is to figure out which are the most worrisome problems, and how to minimize them.

I was aware of this already. The question is does moosesus's system have more problems than the borda or modified borda that RAZD came up with?I would be worried about a best 2nd/3rd choice beating out the best 1st/2nd, or even 1st/3rd choice, simply because of the order of eliminations.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

perhaps moose could move all the posts on the voting methods from the "activist judge" topic to here, so we can continue it with the information already given? (you might want to close both threads while you do that?)That would prevent some cutting and pasting or references back and forth and other people getting into the discussion and ...
... I need to go to bed

see message 5 and continued debate on activist judges ...?

There is no practical way (as best I know) to move the messages from there to here.Unfortunately, the Bouda stuff had gone too far by the time I noticed it. If caught early enough, it maybe could have been squashed and forced to a new topic. I just wish members would recognise "off-topic" material that belonged elsewhere, and would do something about it themselves.Maybe I'll modify the title there, to include the Bouda debate.Adminnemooseus

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Can't you copy the whole topic and then delete from each the non-relevant posts?{Adminnemooseus note: Good idea - will look into it. For now that other topic is closed.Please, no more off-topic discussion in this thread.}This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 09-06-2004 01:51 PM

I was guided to the following via Chiroptera's link in message 3, which led to the Voting system page.

quote:

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Instant-runoff voting (IRV) is a voting system used for single-winner elections in which voters have one vote, but can rank candidates in order of preference. In an IRV election, if no candidate receives a majority of first choices, the candidate with the fewest number of votes is eliminated, and ballots cast for that candidate are redistributed to the continuing candidates according to the voters' indicated preference. This process is repeated until one candidate obtains a majority. The term 'instant runoff voting' is used because this process simulates a series of run-off elections. In some implementations a winner may be declared with less than a majority of ballots cast, based on a plurality in the last round, in other implementations, the failure of any candidate to obtain a majority will result in a runoff or other process.

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Source

quote:

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The Borda count is a single winner election method in which voters rank candidates in order of preference. The Borda count determines the winner of an election by giving each candidate a certain number of points corresponding to the position in which he or she is ranked by each voter. Once all votes have been counted the candidate with the most points is the winner. Because it sometimes elects broadly acceptable candidates, rather than those preferred by the majority, the Borda count is often described as a consensus-based electoral system, rather than a majoritarian one.

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SourceAs I understand it, the Borda count is such as used to rank college sport team in the U.S. It strikes me as being very prone to voter dishonesty - For example, in an election with McCain and Obama the major party candidates, Obama supporters could "lie" and rank McCain as their least desired choice even if such were not the case.I guess a very simular thing could happen in an instant-runoff system.Moose

I think this kind of system really works best in local and primary elections where there actually is more than 2 viable canidates. If your mayor or city councilmen are consistently being elected under a plurality rather than a majority then I think instant runoff makes sense.Santa Fe, NM if I remember correctly just had a referendum to implement instant runoff for municipal elections which I think is a great use of the method.

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