I have written before about Instant Runoff Voting [IRV] before. I am still uncertain what my final position will be, but I have been leaning against it for our local elections. Last year showed that many of us are confused about how to vote on our simple first-choice-only ballots.
I tend to support allowing open ballot access which allows a candidate to list all the parties endorsing him/her. If a candidate had a majority in the September primary, he/she would be declared elected. If no candidate had a majority, the top two candidates would face each other in November. Candidates and parties eliminated in September would be out of it.
However, that is not what we are being offered for consideration this year.
Now Joe Soucheray who has been railing against IRV for a while notes that his allies include Chuck Repke and Dave Thune. That gives me a bit of a chuckle, but it should only be momentary. Soucheray mistakenly thinks that IRV is a great leftist conspiracy, so having them as allies seems to arouse him a bit.
But there really is no reason to think that IRV will aid left more than right. It just depends on who the candidates are and who the voters are. Sometimes in some jurisdictions it will work wonders for the left, other times in other places it could work wonders for the right, and in many places many times it will work one way in the election for one office while working the other way in the election for a different office. In some racially divided areas it would likely mean that candidate[s] of the less preferred race[s] are rated last by those of differing race[s].
Soucheray mentions a site which he attributes to Mr. Repke. I checked the site out and watched the videos there. I cannot agree that I follow them, because in an A-B-C election not everybody who chooses C will rank A and B in the same way, nor will all who choose A rank B and C the same way, and so on. While there may be cases in which the system seems to skew things incorrectly and I imagine that candidates and parties from all sides will check out the possibilities, it will be hard to pull those shenanigans. [If we really want to clean up our elections from shenanigans we might wish to address how anybody regardless of party can vote in any party’s primary in the even-year general elections.]
But it does seem likely that keeping all the candidates in the running until the last day will in many cases stifle meaningful debate and it does seem that many people who need enfranchisement the most will avoid voting because they cannot understand the process or will cast invalid ballots.
And I also think we would be better off deciding AFTER Minneapolis had had an IRV election or two under its belt.
I tend to support allowing open ballot access which allows a candidate to list all the parties endorsing him/her. If a candidate had a majority in the September primary, he/she would be declared elected. If no candidate had a majority, the top two candidates would face each other in November. Candidates and parties eliminated in September would be out of it.
However, that is not what we are being offered for consideration this year.
Now Joe Soucheray who has been railing against IRV for a while notes that his allies include Chuck Repke and Dave Thune. That gives me a bit of a chuckle, but it should only be momentary. Soucheray mistakenly thinks that IRV is a great leftist conspiracy, so having them as allies seems to arouse him a bit.
But there really is no reason to think that IRV will aid left more than right. It just depends on who the candidates are and who the voters are. Sometimes in some jurisdictions it will work wonders for the left, other times in other places it could work wonders for the right, and in many places many times it will work one way in the election for one office while working the other way in the election for a different office. In some racially divided areas it would likely mean that candidate[s] of the less preferred race[s] are rated last by those of differing race[s].
Soucheray mentions a site which he attributes to Mr. Repke. I checked the site out and watched the videos there. I cannot agree that I follow them, because in an A-B-C election not everybody who chooses C will rank A and B in the same way, nor will all who choose A rank B and C the same way, and so on. While there may be cases in which the system seems to skew things incorrectly and I imagine that candidates and parties from all sides will check out the possibilities, it will be hard to pull those shenanigans. [If we really want to clean up our elections from shenanigans we might wish to address how anybody regardless of party can vote in any party’s primary in the even-year general elections.]
But it does seem likely that keeping all the candidates in the running until the last day will in many cases stifle meaningful debate and it does seem that many people who need enfranchisement the most will avoid voting because they cannot understand the process or will cast invalid ballots.
And I also think we would be better off deciding AFTER Minneapolis had had an IRV election or two under its belt.
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3 comments:
Chuck Repke and Dave Thune are against this?
Just shows how they know that this way of voting is like guns. irv won't elect liberals. voters will elect liberals. with or without irv. and if you aim the weapon the wrong way you might elect conservatives using both systems.
How do you do a write-in on an IRV ballot?
Can you do a write-in as a first choice only, or can you make one as a second, third, or fifteeth choice?
Good question, anonymous.
Every year somebody votes for Mickey Mouse, so now I am wondering now whether if there are seven candidates needing seven rankikngs, can one rank the seven dwarves?
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