Wanna vote for lefty candidates without getting people like dubya elected? Then look into IRV.
When I wrote that I’m staying with the Democrats for now, Patrick, a green, encouraged me to look into Instant Runoff Voting (IRV, also known as ranked choice voting or RCV), which, in his words, lets people “vote Green without inadvertantly helping the Republicans at the expense of the Democrats.”
What’s IRV? Basically, instead of just voting for one candidate, voters rank candidates by preference. Everyone’s vote counts for their top choice, and the candidate in last place is elimiated. Then, everyone’s vote’s counted again and goes toward the highest-ranked of the remaining choices. Last-place candidates are eliminated one by one, and ballots are recounted accordingly, until someone has a majority.
Example: Say 3 people were running for prez, and my ranking went: #1 for Nader, #2 for Kerry, # 3 for dubya. Likely, Nader would get eliminated after the first round. Then, all votes would be recounted again — and my vote would go toward Kerry.
This way, people disenchanted with the direction the dems have been taking can voice that disenchantment by ranking someone else first, but without inadverdently splitting the lefty vote and “electing” dubya the new prez.
I looked for arguments against IRV — The ones I’ve come across point to rather vague concerns that this new method will cost more, and diatribes about how IRV takes away voter choice and majority requirements — neither of which is true. Those against IRV in Santa Clara county warned voters that IRV’s a “revolutionary method” — Ooooh, scary!
San Francisco’s been using RCV since November 2004. Now, there’s a movement to bring it to LA. Wanna get involved? Los Angeles Voters For Instant Runoff Elections’s working on city and county charter amendments for IRV in city and county elections. Join in by signing up for the emailing list. Those in Santa Monica might also be interested in Santa Monica Ranked Voting.
For state elections: California IRV Coalition’s working to get IRV implemented in all statewide single-winner elections. This group’s sponsored by Californians for Electoral Reform (below). To join free and help out the group’s efforts, add yourself to the directory.
Californians for Electoral Reform’s a Cali-specific org that promotes election methods like IRV and forms of proportional representation. Standard membership costs $25 a year and automatically enrolls you as a member of FairVote: The Center for Voting and Democracy– a national org that’s working towards electoral reforms like instant runoff voting, proportional voting, direct election of the president and automatic voter registration.
If you’ve read this far, you might also be interested in National Popular Vote, a nonprofit — strongly supported by FairVote — that’s working to get the prez elected by popular vote, as opposed to the current electoral college.
And dems, keep tabs on the Speak Out California weblog to prep for the June 6, 2006 primary elections.
Bravo, Siel!
It should be noted that the 2002 campaign to pursuade San Francisco voters to approve IRV was a cooperative effort of both the SF Democratic Party and the SF Green Party. Essentially, it was a merging of the Greens’ impetus and volunteer manpower, and the Dems’ money and influence. The only major opposition to IRV in San Francisco came from the local Republican Party (which needs liberal vote-splitting to have any electoral viability in that town), and from professional political consultants (who had a personal financial stake in preventing the traditional, costly two-election from being contracted into a cheaper single-election system like IRV). Thanks to that solid Green/Dem cooperation, and despite being outspent by the opposition, the afformentioned 2002 city referrendum on Instant Runoff Voting passed handily: 55%-45%.
I’m tellin’ ya, good things happen when Greens and Dems work together!
Oh, and by the way, now that SF voters have actually *used* IRV in a city election, what do they think about it (as compared to the old “traditional” method?) For the answer (pdf), check out the recent SFSU analysis of polling on that very question.
In sum, SF voters who’ve used IRV now say that it made them more likely to vote for the candidates they most prefer rather than for candidates they don’t much like but who seem more electable, they say they IRV made them feel less like they were “wasting” their votes, they say it was easy to use, and finally, based on their actual experience with both systems, SF voters would prefer to continue using ranked-choice ballots and IRV, rather than return to the old, traditional method of special runoff elections.
Not to sound like a petulant child, but how come San Francisco gets this cool toy, and we don’t?
Comment by Patrick Meighan — February 28, 2006 @ 1:20 am
This sounds like a brilliant idea. I’m tired of voting for the lesser evil, but like a lot of people, I don’t want to waste my vote. Very nice …
Comment by Brian — February 28, 2006 @ 1:50 am
Great post! Three thoughts:
1. The City of Tacoma Park, Maryland recently voted for IRV for local elections; this is a suburb of Washington DC.
2. Dems and Reps sometimes see IRV as some sort of threat, but the cost-savings and reduced voter burnout benefit even the biggest of parties. Remember that recent free-for-all called the LA Mayor’s race? Instead of having a second election a few weeks after the first, IRV would have settled the matter the first time out.
Lower cost elections (both as to campaigns and running the voting system) are good; less voter burnout is VERY good.
3. Choice Voting is a great way to conduct elections for class president. (Teacher’s — listenting?) Kids often want to vote for a friend and someone they think would be good at the job. IRV resolves that conflict, and means fewer rough spots in class.
New topic If you decide to venture further into the strictly political, you may want to investigate a bill which includes Dem sponsors which will effectively freeze third party’s out of running for Congress.
HR 4694 would require an independent or small party to get signatures from 65,000 voters in my congressional district to be eligible for public financing — and failing to qualify would mean a small party candidate would not be allowed to raise or spend ANY private money to run!
The http://www.gp.org/press/pr_2006_02_09.shtml
Green Party Press Release does a fair job of explaining it.
Comment by Roger, Gone Green — February 28, 2006 @ 5:07 am
This is kinda related. The guru on IRV, Steven Hill, who wrote the book, Fixing Elections, has this to say about Hamas’ victory:
Dear friends and colleagues,
I thought you might be interested in my recent op-ed published in the
Hartford Courant, Prague Post (Czech Republic) and elsewhere that makes the
overlooked point that Hamas actually did not win a majority of votes in the
recent Palestinian elections — yet they won nearly a super-majority of
seats. What happened is that the U.S.-style winner-take-all electoral system
used in the elections broke down, installing into power a party that did not
have majority support. If the Palestinians had used a proportional
representation electoral system like that used by most of the established
democracies in the world they would have ended up with no party winning a
legislative majority, and a coalition government forming (probably a grand
coalition between Hamas and Fatah) that would have been more stable for the
peace process there.
It’s important to understand these dynamics, because at the very least it
shows that there is not overwhelming support (though there is strong
support) among Palestinians for Hamas’ point of view. But that perspective
is being lost right now in the post-election analysis as the world wrings
its hands over election results that have derailed a fragile peace process
and that could have been avoided by a better electoral system. Also, it
illustrates the importance of electoral systems — unfortunately, when you
are trying to jumpstart democracy, the devil is in the details.
read the article here:
http://www.praguepost.com/P03/2006/Art/0216/opin1.php
Cheers,
Lisa Taylor
Los Angeles Greens
Comment by Lisa — February 28, 2006 @ 11:44 am
Thanks all, for weighing in. As a newbie to IRV though, I’m wondering if anyone here can provide an update as to what’s happening in terms of IRV in LA so far. Is anyone trying to push legislation about it through? If so, who? If not, who might we try to petition to get on that?
Comment by Siel — February 28, 2006 @ 8:17 pm
It’s LAVOTEFIRE. You linked to it above.
lavotefire.org
David Holtzman, a wonderful Democrat, btw, founded the organization.
Several LA Greens and others lobbied with David at LA city councilmember offices last fall.
I’ll shoot an email over to David and ask him to give us an update.
Lisa Taylor
http://losangelesgreens.org/
Comment by Lisa — March 1, 2006 @ 11:01 am
Hi, Siel! Long time no talk. I like the idea of IRV, but I’ve read about faults in that particular voting alternative. I wrote an article on voting alternatives a while back: http://www.dirtygreek.org/article/entry_id/38
Monotonicity is perhaps the most fundamental criterion for election methods. Common sense tells us that good election methods should be monotonic. Methods that fail to comply are erratic.
A simple example will prove that IRV is non-monotonic.
That same site approves of “approval voting.” Another option proposed by that site (which, by the way, is electionmethods.org) is condorcet voting. The main idea is that each race is conceptually broken down into separate pairwise races between each possible pairing of the candidates. Each ranked ballot is then interpreted as a vote in each of those one-on-one races. If candidate A is ranked above candidate B by a particular voter, that is interpreted as a vote for A over B. If one candidates beats each of the other candidates in their one-on-one races, that candidate wins. Otherwise, the result is ambiguous and a simple procedure is used to resolve the ambiguity.
http://www.electionmethods.org/index.htm
Comment by george — March 5, 2006 @ 6:53 am
Hi Seil and everybody. This is my first blog post, and I have to make it quick, because I got last-minute tickets to the Malibu Getty, and must run to catch a bus.
LAVoteFIRE is active in a few cities in LA County. Currently, Burbank is our best shot at getting some sort of Instant Runoff elections soon, because they are in the middle of a charter review process, and it seems the members of the Charter Review Committee don’t like having to spend 6 extra Saturdays knocking on doors because there’s a second round in Council elections. If you live in Burbank and can help, please email me, dh@lavotefire.org.
The County Supervisors control the eventual outcome here, because they buy almost all of the voting equipment used in elections, local thru fed, in the County. Demand for “customer service” from municipalities might sway them. Also, there is an upcoming Supervisor vacancy that could result in a two-round election, which might annoy people and prompt reexamination of the two-round county system.
Other cities LAVoteFIRE is focusing on include Los Angeles and Santa Monica. We tried and failed in Culver City.
A task force from the San Fernando Valley Alliance for Democracy will be helping with lobbying L.A. City Hall in April.
There’s a separate effort going on in Pasadena that I can tell you about if you live there and email me.
Thanks, Lisa, for the nice compliment and alerting me to this blog.
:-) d
Comment by David Holtzman — March 5, 2006 @ 8:56 am
george — But I’m gonna need some more evidence about the downsides of IRV beyond what someone alleges is just “common sense” … The guy you quote, BTW, had his website shut down (reasons on the site, which you linked me to) —
David — Thanks for the info. I’ll join up and see how I can get involved in LA! Though I’m hoping to move to Santa Monica soon –
Comment by Siel — March 5, 2006 @ 10:31 am
Yep - I would agree with that.. Thanks for the line.
Comment by geoff daum — June 9, 2008 @ 9:13 pm