I learned about IRV, or Instant Runoff Voting, in a recent interview on Bill Moyers’ NOW with the four third-party Presidential candidates who have qualified to be placed on enough state ballots to theoretically be electable.
The four candidates represent the Constitution, Green, Libertarian and Populist parties.
This year, there has been some semi-decent press about alternative political parties, including giving them credit for advancing progressive ideas that have become embedded in our social and political mores, like giving women the right to vote, Social Security, and the 40-hour work week.
Unfortunately, because elections at the state level currently are awarded on a “winner take all” basis, third parties have gotten the bum rap of being “spoilers”: a candidate (e.g., Bush) can receive less than 50% of the vote but be “awarded” all of a state’s electoral votes (Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio in 2000).
By the way, there are similar stats for Gore (Wisconsin, New Mexico, Minnesota, Maine, Oregon, Iowa).
Under IRV, a candidate MUST receive over 50% of the votes to be declared the winner, and not simply the highest percentage of votes.
Under this system, voters would be given the opportunity to vote for a first AND second choice Presidential candidate. If the candidate with the top number of votes doesn’t get a majority (over 50%), the second choice votes would be tabulated for the candidate who ranks last. This continues until one candidate has over 50% of first and second choice votes.
How would the 2000 election would have turned out under this system? No one really knows.
But it would be gratifying if some or all of the swing states in made this change, and evidently it is being seriously considered in some places.
Worst case, the “majors” would have to pay a lot more attention to alternative party voters and our opinions of the way the federal government should work.