On 7 Dec 2009, at 04:17, John R. Levine wrote:
It has been suggested that we use the Instant-Runoff voting as called for in our Rules of Procedure for other elections. ...
First, I believe that the process is difficult for many people to get their mind around, unless they are VERY used to this process.
I lived in Cambridge, Mass., for 15 years, where we used STV to elect both the nine-member city council and the seven-member school committee. We got paper ballots and ranked the candidates from 1 to whatever with a pencil. Then it took a week to find out who won as they did the STV counting process by hand, in three shifts 24/7 until done. Since I left, I gather some MIT guys wrote software to count mark-sense ballots so they can report the result on election night.
Even with Cambridge's significant voter turnover from one election to the next, it worked fine.
The counting process is indeed arcane, and is even more arcane in multi-candidate elections, but you don't have to understand the counting process to understand how to vote. The point of STV is that it removes the incentive to do strategic voting, in which you vote for a less preferred candidate because you think your favorite candidate has no chance. With STV your best strategy is to rank the candidates in your actual order of preference. You can vote for your favorite no-hope candidate, without risking being disenfranchised since you get a 2nd to Nth chance if he or she is knocked out.
R's, John
STV works a lot better than "first past the post" It means you're more likely to end up with a truly representative candidate getting elected John's explanation says it all, so I won't waste people's time adding to it Michele Mr Michele Neylon Blacknight Solutions Hosting & Colocation, Brand Protection http://www.blacknight.com/ http://blog.blacknight.com/ http://mneylon.tel Intl. +353 (0) 59 9183072 US: 213-233-1612 UK: 0844 484 9361 Locall: 1850 929 929 Direct Dial: +353 (0)59 9183090 Fax. +353 (0) 1 4811 763 ------------------------------- Blacknight Internet Solutions Ltd, Unit 12A,Barrowside Business Park,Sleaty Road,Graiguecullen,Carlow,Ireland Company No.: 370845