Re: A better way to vote

From: barkofdelight <barkofdelight_at_yahoo.com_at_hypermail.org>
Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 06:44:01 -0000

"Georgie Hinklemyer" <samoolives_at_y...> wrote:

> Two votes per person: the primary vote and the secondary vote. First
> thing after an election, you count up only the primary votes. If none
> of the candidates gets a Majority (>50%) of the vote, then the
> secondary votes are added in.

This is quite similar to what is called "IRV" ("Instant Runoff"
Voting). That system was just used in San Francisco for some of
their city candidates. I'll let the residents of that fine city
give a detailed report. (Or you could just search the web for
more information than you could possibly want.)

Over the years there have been many different voting systems
proposed and analyzed. They all have their pros and minuses,
but I think that anyone who has looked into them (even briefly)
would agree that our "vote for one" system is just about the
worst system in common usage.

[AEM had a great story about the Carter/Reagan/Anderson election.
 In that election, Anderson got an insignificant percentage of the
 votes. But if the system had been "Vote for every candidate whom
 you would be happy to have as your president", Anderson would
 have won by a landslide. This is important for many reasons.]

Bark!
Received on 2004-11-12 22:44:21