Instant Runoff Voting

The voting format known as Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) has been approved for use in San Francisco. IRV has been a favorite of supporters of third party candidates because it allows a better reflection of actual voter preference in the populace. In other words, it can increase the chances of third-party candidates for getting into elected office.

The system is relatively simple. A voter goes into their polling place. They review the candidates for a particular office and vote for their top three (example case) choices. So they mark, "Green, Libertarian, Democract," in that order. When it comes time to cound the votes everyone's first-choice is counted. If that does not give a candidate with a 50%-plus-one majority, the last-place candidate is removed from contention, and ballots with that candidate marked as 1st place now had their 2nd place choices promoted to first place and the count is taken again. In this test case, the Libertarian candidate finished last; but since our voter had that as their 2nd choice no change to their ballot is made yet. The process continues until one candidate has a 50%-plus-one majority.

The advantage here is that people can vote for their doomed-to-fail candidate without fear of 'spoiling' the election for the democrat/republican who will actually get the position. And perhaps maybe, enough folk will start voting for non-major party candidates that perhaps one might slip in as everyone's #2 choice in a race that is hotly contested.

In a sort of real-world example, take the 1998 Govenors election in Minnesota. The actual margin was very minor:

37.0% Jessie Ventura, Reform Party
34.3% Norm Coleman, Republican
28.1% Hubert "Skip" Humphrey, DFL
00.2% other minor candidates

Jessie won with with barly over a third of the populace voting for him. Had this election gone with IRV, the results would have been different.

First Round
37.0% Jessie Ventura, Reform Party
34.3% Norm Coleman, Republican
28.1% Hubert "Skip" Humphrey, DFL
00.2% other minor candidates

No one at 50% yet, so mark up the 2nd choices of 'other candidates'

Second Round
37.1% Jessie Ventura, Reform Party
34.3% Norm Coleman, Republican
28.2% Hubert "Skip" Humphrey, DFL

Still no one above 50%, so remove Humphrey from contention, and mark up 2nd choice candidates of Humphry ballots

Third Round
55.2% Jessie Ventura, Reform Party
37.7% Norm Coleman, Republican

Presuming that Democratic voters would rather have Jessie, more liberal than Norm Coleman, than the traditional enemy, more would choose Jessie as their #2 than Norm or 'minor party' candidates. Since minor party candidates have already been dropped from the election, 3rd or even 4th choices by democratic voters would be counted to get to a valid candidate.

This would have resulted in a much clearer 'mandate' for Jessie Ventura. Nationally, Clinton never got 50% of the overall vote thanks to Perot being in both races. Both were called "unelected" by their detractors. IRV would give a credence to such candidates that plain old top-vote-getter doesn't.

I'm glad that IRV is getting more attention of late. I believe that it is a valid thing to have. It allows supporters of minor party candidates a chance to actually vote for their candidate but also still enable them to NOT detract from the major-party "lesser of two evils" canddiate.