My only concern is that IRV ballots could prove confusing for some. Presumably optical scanners won't be expected to distinguish hand-written numbers, so will there be three ovals next to each name, one for each rank? Would the Portland mayor's race, with 13 candidates plus a write-in option, have 42 ovals? Or would it be 48 ovals with a second and third write-in option? I can imagine some elderly voters having trouble processing the three-votes-per-office setup.

I'm not opposed to IRV, but perhaps old-fashioned runoff elections, despite their expense, would be better. Or fusion voting, though I would find it annoying that the candidate would get to choose my second-place choice.

"Because a number of Oregon municipalities use runoff elections, instant runoffs have another advantage as well: saving local government's money"

Does that mean "the mayoral candidate only got 48% so there will be a runoff"? Does it mean "the mayoral candidate got 52%, therefore only that candidate will appear on the general election ballot?

Which municipalities use which systems?

Thank you James X for asking intelligent questions!

What if the candidates are seen as good vs. evil (Hanten Day vs. Kevin Cameron, or Howe vs Esquivel, for instance?

You folks may think IRV or whatever is an excellent process. But to pass the legislature it would take 31 votes in the House and 16 in the Senate--are there really that many votes for "yeah, that's a great idea--no need to hold hearings and discuss the details, let's just pass it"?

IRV advocates should start talking details, and not just here. Could any IRV advocate visit their legislator's office (or talk face to face with their legislator) and answer any questions asked?

I'm getting real tired of seeing proposed solutions to problems that are not defined - if the problem exists at all.

Sal, I hope you will share bill # / links for this as soon as available

"The elections and rules committee adopted IRV for local elections as a committee bill a few weeks ago at the request of SOS-elect, Kate Brown.

There is also a bill being drafted to have cross-nominations printed on the ballots, and the working families party has a great ballot title for a fusion voting ballot measure."

And then there is this question. You said, "The goal of IRV is to elect the candidate whose views most accurately represent the preferences of largest segment of the voting population. "

It seems to me that the largest segment of the voting population is too busy with their own lives to pay attention to discussions like this.

My point, and I believe Steve's point, is that ordinary folks (the ones who might not know or care what this means: "The elections and rules committee adopted IRV for local elections as a committee bill a few weeks ago at the request of SOS-elect, Kate Brown.") deserve to have it explained to them--in neighborhood groups, city clubs, citizenship events in church basements, Rotary, etc. and any questions answered. Why should someone who likes the current system support a different system---because young activists think it is a good idea, therefore they should think so too?

My perception is that the IRV advocates think they can just talk about it here and not have to talk face to face with actual voters who don't think there is anything wrong with the current system of voting.

Let's see the IRV advocates do some of those face to face events with ordinary voters, and then report back on the questions they were asked and how they answered the questions.

"Article II, Section 16 of the Oregon Constitution allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference."

Clarification:

Article II, Section 16 of the Oregon Constitution allows the Legislature (or an initiative) to implement IRV without necessitating a Constitutional amendment. In itself, it does not allow voters to rank candidates.

IRV has a lot to be said for it, particularly at the local level, I believe. A good summary of IRV is here: Wikipedia entry on IRV

A summary of all the different types of voting systems and their trade-offs is here: Wikipedia entry on voting systems

good questions, pete. i'm still trying to wrap my brain around this one:

until you consider situations in which more people are voting for losing candidates than for a winner.

more votes = winner

maybe i just haven't had enough coffee, but i don't get it.

Jim Ross -- if this is indeed how it works, thanks for the workin' man's version, easily comprehensible.

@ Jim Ross: You mean there's never been a politician demanding bribes elected under a two-round runoff? WOW -- who knew?

Also, SF adopted IRV because they were spending millions to hold runoffs in December where they would only get a few percent of voters to turn out. Moreover, the exhausted candidates who advanced to the runoff round then had to turn around and raise more money, which made them even more beholden to the corporados.

Elimination of spoilers is not the only benefit of IRV. The ultimate beneficiary is the voter, who no longer needs to even think in strategic voting terms.

As for "IRV bad because it would have elected a Republican," that's a piss poor way to choose an election system. IRV is a pro-voter method that is neutral in how it treats parties -- including minor parties, who are helped a lot more by IRV than fusion (which simply lets minor parties cross-endorse, rather than put forward their own candidates). In Alaska, the lack of IRV helped elect Tony Knowles, hurting the GOP. In Washington, Slade Gorton was defeated because they didn't have IRV. But in other states, Democrats have been hurt by the lack of IRV, where Green voters who would have preferred a Dem as a second choice allowed a Republican to win. But that's all results-oriented anyway, which is no way to pick a system.

If the Democratic rhetoric (seen on this site and many others) about wanting a healthy opposition and wanting a return to sanity among Republicans means anything, it must mean making fair reforms that empower voters, rather than insisting on preserving a deficient system because it happens to work in our favor at this particular time in this particular place.

Another benefit not mentioned -- but very salient right now -- is that IRV punishes negative campaigning because candidates pay a penalty for attacks: it's hard to ask for people's second choice rankings if you've trashed their first choice. Thus, IRV creates an incentive for candidates to identify areas of agreement, so that they can say "OK, even if Sally is your first choice, you can see that I'd make a good second choice here because Sally and I share these positions ...." If you've called Sally a terrorist appeaser (or "radical environmentalist" or ...) then you can't expect many of Sally's backers to support you with their second choices.

In other words, IRV actually delivers (as documented in stories about how IRV is working in SF) what M65 claimed to offer -- an inducement to moderation.

Sal, you said you would have voted for Vicki had you lived in the district, or something like that.

You said this: "2) Printing of cross-nominations on ballot, introduced by Buckley, Berger, Monroe".

If it is being presession filed, when will we know the bill number?

If Berger really wants this to pass, she should hold town hall meetings--either in the district or at night in a vacant room at the capitol, as our state senators did one year--and explain the bill. She could do it alone or with Buckley and Monroe---that would be an interesting meeting! People who actually live in Dist. 20 have been angry at how few town hall meetings she has ever held. Maybe you could come to the town hall meeting as well.

That would be a face to face encounter with ordinary people, and this could be discussed face to face instead of just on blogs. Would the folks at the town hall think it as excellent an idea as some folks here, or would they have the sort of common sense questions about the process none of the advocates had considered? For instance, how would it have applied in Dist. 19, 20, 23 in 2008?

Personally, I like the idea of non-instant runoff, like what Saxby Chambliss now has to endure in Georgia.

But that's all results-oriented anyway, which is no way to pick a system.

aren't all election systems "results-oriented," though?

status quo: affects outcome this way

IRV: affects outcome that way

pros and cons, blahblahblah, etc. also.

you do make a fascinating point about the push to moderation.

@ Cedwyn: "results oriented" means choosing a process by whether you like the product, rather than by whether the process has the necessary attributes.

It is to IRV's credit that it doesn't favor a particular ideology (product) -- it's a neutral improvement that helps all voters because it almost entirely eliminates the possibility of having a winner whom the majority voted against. (If a lot of people "bullet vote" -- only pick one choice -- then it's still possible to have a majority winner (the candidate with the majority of votes in the end) who did not wind up with majority support of all voters (if you look at the percentage of votes cast in the first round.)

To go back to the results oriented thing, if we're going to dis IRV because it might have helped Gordo stay in office, then we should also note that Al Franken, Barack Obama, Chuck Schumer, and Harry Reid all wish Minnesota used IRV right now.

(In fact, both Obama and McCain have endorsed IRV.)

George, we are talking about specific proposals here in Oregon.

If you like IRV that much, contact Kate Brown, Berger, Buckley, Monroe and ask what you can do to help pass the legislation mentioned above.

If you truly want IRV and not just argument, do the actual work required to make it happen.

Be prepared to answer questions if someone asks you in person about the concerns James X has expressed here.

@ LT: Excuse me, I was responding to the post by Cedwyn above.

I'm responding to Peter Forsyth and others who ask, "What problem does IRV solve?" It's called vote splitting. It's a very real problem that sometimes causes the wrong candidate to win. "Wrong" in the sense that a solid majority coalition wants somebody else.

I know that this is a Democratic Party forum and the current Senate race is an uncomfortable example. But, just for a minute, let's be small-d democrats rather than large-D partisans. Believe me, the shoe will be on the other foot as often as not. If the second choices of Brownlow's supporters had been recorded, it would almost certainly be apparent that Merkley was the wrong winner because a (in this case very tiny) majority prefer Smith to Merkley. It's just that a (in this case tiny) fraction of that majority coalition like Brownlow even better than Smith and were willing to say so. In short, Smith is a fairer -- more (small-d) democratic -- outcome than Merkley.

Candidates like Brownlow are often called "spoilers". Does anyone remember the uproar over Nader in 2000? Yes, the shoe is often on the other foot. But these candidates don't actually spoil elections. Elections are spoiled by the winner-take-all, plurality voting method, which penalizes voters for stating their true first choice.

IRV implements majority rule better than delayed runoffs at a lot less cost. The cost of runoffs is not just the cost to the government to run a second election. It also includes the cost to the candidates and financial backers to run a second campaign, cost to the voters to have to listen to the commercials all over again and cast another ballots, and cost to the democratic process when turnout is dramatically lower in one round than the other.

Fusion is a valuable reform. In fact, it is a right that political parties ought to have. The Supreme Court was wrong to decide that states can take that right away. Hopefully that decision will be reversed someday.

Combined with IRV or delayed runoff, fusion gives small parties important flexibility. But in the absence of a majority-rule voting procedure, it is not a solution to the problem of vote splitting, unless by "solution" you mean, "OK, fine, you can run our candidate without the penalty of the spoiler role, but we're not going to let you run one of your own".

Also, how does fusion help voters whose first choice candidate is an independent, unaffiliated with any party?

My point is this:

I have gotten emails (been on multiple emails from legislators) saying "Come to a town hall meeting on the bill to...." when a legislator was pushing a bill important to them. I hadn't realized anyone considered that an odd strategy. Sounds intelligent to me--good way to build a grass roots lobbying force for a bill which otherwise might not get much support or publicity.

I said I live in a district where the number of town hall meetings (general interest or any topic) that our state rep. has had could be counted probably on the fingers of one hand. The number of "Come, ask me anything" town hall meetings with only the state rep. at the front of the room engaging in dialogue with ordinary citizens (the way Wyden does in each county once a year) has been ZERO. State Rep. gives a good impression of not caring about constituents, but where did I say ordinary people don't care about the process?

If people have work and family responsibilities which preclude going to legislative hearings (hopefully in the future if a bill is scheduled to be heard at 4pm on Tuesday the 3rd, it will be held then, not rescheduled at the last minute, and progressive chairs would allow those who have come from a ways away to testify before those in the building every day), does that mean they "don't care" or does it mean there is more in their lives than politics?

Maybe TJ thinks Vicki plays the game the way the game is supposed to be played--town hall meetings with constitutents are less important than inside games with people who are in the capitol every day. Why have an open public process when it is so much easier to only talk to the people in the capitol every day!

But I don't think that is what founders of the Progressive movement, or the folks who got so much good legislation passed in Oregon in past decades think is how the system should work.

I believe a legislator who considers a bill important should try to "sell " it too the public, not just campaign for it among legislators and "stakeholders". If that makes me strange or old fashioned, so be it.

If IRV is to be a crusade, not just the subject of a debating society, the supporters will hold many hearings and town hall meetings on any IRV measure before it is passed--and hopefully some night hearings / hearings outside the capitol building as well.

Are there really 31 votes for this in the House and 16 in the Senate? We will find out.

How many legislators see this as a top priority item?

Someday, we will have a bill number for this bill and be able to read the text. And be able to contact legislators and say "I agree/ disagree with the language of HB 1234, esp. this section....".

Some of our state rep. races were close. If those who won by small margins start hearing from constituents that the bill is too esoteric given the problems facing Oregon in 2009, how will those legislators react? The definition of esoteric I am using is "understood by or meant for only the select few who have special knowledge or interest". If they get one comment on IRV and hundreds on budget or other issues, which issues will they make a priority?

My experience as a Salem resident watching the legislature goes back decades. I have helped lobby bills friends were supporting. I once testified in committee. I do understand the process, regardless of what some may think.

Thanks, Dan. There are lots of things a legislature does which impact everyday life in Oregon (parents of infants glad that when the bill to outlaw disposable diapers was introduce it wasn't passed---there were legislators who were parents of infants and opposed the bill, not to mention family leave and a whole host of other legislation) a lot more than voting systems.

This bill "IRV for local elections, committee bill introduced by Kate Brown." would be more likely to succeed than the others, IMO.

"Article II, Section 16 of the Oregon Constitution allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference. Instead of voting for just one candidate, voters can indicate their first, second and third choices. If a candidate wins a majority of first-choice rankings, that candidate is elected. If, on the other hand, no candidate receives an initial majority of first-choice rankings, the candidate with the fewest first-choice rankings is eliminated from the contest and that candidate's supporters now have their votes count for their second choice"

Sounds too much and/or simular to College Football's BCS crap to determine thier national football champion. That makes IRV an automatic no in my book. Public office is a more real human thing than a sports championship, and downgrading an election to the level of a suspect, amalgamated series of subjected polls is just making it too confusing and crazy.

Thank you Eric Parker!

I emailed a Democratic legislator today on this subject, and mentioned this BO topic. I mentioned my concerns about the possible legislation, and the items I thought were of higher priority.

I would urge anyone with strong feelings on this issue to do the same thing--more powerful than just blogging.

ALthough I like the idea of instant runoff, the whole business of framing the argument in terms of so-called spoiler candidates is bogus, because it implicitly buys into the argument that only "major" candidates are legitimate.

Let me correct some misleading points about San Francisco and make a couple additional comments.

Jim writes: San Francisco has had IRV or what we call Ranked Choice Voting, because there is nothing instant about it.... any people blame the election of a corrupt supervisor, who was a corrupt candidate, on this system. Because he never went through the rigors of an actual run off election he was able to sneak through with 2nd place votes and was never truly vetted. Six months later he was caught demanding bribes.

Jim neglects to mention that this candidate was by far the most popular Asian American candidate in an Asian American majority district. He also was the leader after the count of first choices and would have won in a traditional plurality election. He also would have very likely won in a traditional runoff against the second-place candidate, a non-Asian candidate.

Can IRV prevent the election of candidates who are ultimately disappointing? Of course not! But what is true is that this week's SF elections again elected very progressive candidates who didn't need to worry about splitting the vote -- and there was plenty of vigorous debate.

Jim also suggests IRV isn't instant because the city has to wait on absentee ballots, just as they do in ala western states. But Burlington (VT) had its results within a couple hours of polls closing in its mayoral election in 2006 (in a race where a third party candidate won against a disappointing, corporate-type Democrat and a Republican). For the voters, of course, it's instant in how they vote -- one reason they overwhelmingly prefer IRV to their old system according to local exit polls, including by a whopping 8 to one margin among young voters under 30.

LT writes (and others echo in one form or another): "Personally, I like the idea of non-instant runoff, like what Saxby Chambliss now has to endure in Georgia."

Well... turnout in Georgia is going to plummet - disproportionately among working class and younger people. The candidates are going to spend millions. Special interest money will soar. Sorry, that's not better in my book.

Earlier LT writes: "My perception is that the IRV advocates think they can just talk about it here and not have to talk face to face with actual voters who don't think there is anything wrong with the current system of voting."

Huh> Instant runoff voting has been passed by voters in something like 15 ballot measures around the country, including major cities like Memphis this week (71%), Oakland, Minneapolis, Pierce County (WA), etc, etc. Using it for Congress got through the Vermont legislature after years of work and was vetoed by a craven Republican governor who knows it might hurt his party. Laws to help cities use IRV passed two states this year, and as has been pointed out, a similar bill moved in Oregon. IRV advocates aren't just holding debating clubs.

As one example of how deeply it's sunk into the political culture of Minnesota (where 14 of the last 20 statewide races have been won by less than 50% and this year's senate race has two candidates tied with less than 42%), google "instant runoff" and "franken" and see what you get.

Finally, for those focused on the partisan angle in this year's Senate race, you really can't say what would have happened. Up in Pierce County right now, say, the right-wing independent's votes are going more to one of the Democrats in the county executive race than the Republican -- and that's a key reason IRV is vaulting her from second to first ahead of the Republican who has a plurality of first choices. All we can say for sure is that with IRV voters could have voted more freely and there would be clarity that a candidate isn't taking office over the clear will of the majority.

@ Dan P.: Yes, IRV does not address the "much more" issues of distributional justice. It also doesn't cure cancer, acne, or dry, cracked skin.

What IRV does do is provide a big step towards fixing a major cause of dissatisfaction with politics, which is a brain-dead plurality system, a system that regularly produces pathological results when more than two candidates contest for a seat. It provides a way for minor parties and their closest major party cousin to occupy the same space without need for the vicious competition that occurs today whenever a solid individual chooses to line up under a minor party banner (which has the perverse effect of threatening their closest major party cousin while benefiting their most distant one).

As for whether helping reduce that dissatisfaction with politics is itself a progressive step, my notion is yes, it is. Frustration with an unreliable system for choosing elected officials -- a system that often produces downright backfiring results, and that makes wary voters have to think and vote strategically -- is itself a cause of cynicism about government, which is an anti-progressive phenomenon. The fact is, when we get a minority winner despite clear majority opposition, we are hitting a majority of voters in the face and telling them that their votes didn't count and their participation meant nothing -- even though they had the majority! Many voters conclude that the system is rigged and designed for the benefit of officeholders rather than voters -- and in this instance, they're right. But the poisonous feelings that stem from that insult aren't limited to just a dumb election system. Instead, they leak out to all actions of government, which is a problem if you want government to be able to take effective action.

@ Erik P: Really? IRV resembles BCS??

Actually, IRV is much more like a true playoff than the BCS -- only instead of needing multiple weeks and multiple rounds, IRV gets the job done in one efficient step.

With a ranked choice ballot, every voter gets to pick their true favorite, without regard for what other voters do.

They then have the chance to say "If no one gets a majority and wins outright (equivalent to going undefeated through the season), and if my true favorite doesn't have much support (has lost the most games during the season), then instead of discarding my vote entirely and only letting other voters decide, add my vote to those cast for this other team here (the second choice).

Chris, I did not say "don't discuss on blogs", I said that anyone who really wants IRV has to go beyond blogs and actually get involved in making it happen.

Your comment is very intersting. You said "The reason I like IRV in principle is because it would increase the role of smaller parties in getting ideas onto the public agenda in a way that I just don't think fusion by itself does. "

That's fine--discuss principle all you want.

But if you actually want IRV to happen, you have to go from principle to practice. For instance, if a state legislator arrives at the capitol in January with 5 priorities, and IRV is not one of them, discussing IRV in principle is not going to make that legislator put IRV on the priority list. That was my point.

Jack, this is interesting information. " Instant runoff voting has been passed by voters in something like 15 ballot measures around the country,"

But Oregonians are not required to support IRV just because other jurisdictions have. Voters in their wisdom voted down M. 65--maybe it was because they like the voting system the way it is. If not convinced IRV will make improvements in the current system, they can just as easily vote down IRV.

Thank you Jenni! I believe the issues you raise are more important to ordinary folks than IRV.

George, if you believe this: "What IRV does do is provide a big step towards fixing a major cause of dissatisfaction with politics, which is a brain-dead plurality system, " you talk to much different people than I do.

The folks I know rely on people they know to get voting information "Would you email me all the numbers for the Sizemore and Mannix measures so I will know which ones to vote against?" "If you know both candidates (yes, seldom a 3rd party candidate here) and say one is a lot better for that county job than the other one, I will take your word for it, and thank you for the input".

We live near County Elections, so that is where we drop off ballots. They only have inside service there--the drive up service is downtown on a wide street alongside the courthouse. That sort of thing is more important to people I know than the system of voting.

I don't have a problem with Fusion voting. As for IRV being some kind of an improvement, voters get to chose from anybody on the ballot or write someone in. There is no institutional block to voting for whom you wish. A srategic vote is the voter's choice.

Let's leave Brownlow off the ballot for a second, so Smith becomes my #2 choice? Why? I like my damn dog more. Am I supposed to research the Constitutional Party and the Libertarians to see if I like them more than Smith? On a scale of honesty - yes, policy - no. I might find it in me vote Republican, but those two scare the snot out of me and I'm supposed to figure out which one scares me less? To be sure, a Green or Family doesn't automatically scare me, and maybe if they ran somebody I liked I'd vote for them. But I have that choice now.

If I'm so unhappy with a Democrat that I'd vote for somebody else, I obviously don't very much care if the Dem wins or not, so why do I need a 2 or 8 for him?

Had GWB not won 2 elections and the Rs a bunch of Congressional elections the Obama election may well not have occurred, sometimes it is important to have people screw the works up and get banished for awhile. Would the D Party of today look like it does without some time in the wilderness? Maybe the Rs don't need to be #2, maybe they need to go away and have a new party/ies. IRV would almost guarantee that wouldn't happen. A crap party can stay viable by being #2 choice for its nearest voters.

I use the Rs because they are currently in the doghouse. Why aren't there Whigs around, today? Why would the Rs smarten up if they're not losing elections due to (x) votes, if they get the 'oh well' vote as well?

There are unintended consquences to this kind of mucking about, the will of the voters is important but so is pushing them into making clear decisions and this muddies the waters, a lot.

If you think I'm pushing a (D)agenda, just replace the (R) in my examples. I have gone against the (D) for good reasons and I'm satisfied that for the time being they've learned something. I want them to face that stark reality, that we could easily send them to the dog house and giving them a #2 because the (R) is farther away isn't going to do that job.

If you think this has something to do with the will of the voters, get your initiative drive going, I'll vote no, but I'll enjoy your campaign a lot more than Sizemore's and you'll get thumped at the polls. You keep thinking you're fixing something the voters don't think is broken.

@ LT: I did not mean to suggest that people necessarily understood that plurality is one of the causes of their dissatisfaction.

In fact, I hazard a guess that most Americans are totally uneducated about the fact that there even is any "other way" to vote--that's been my common experience in talking to people about alternatives. Fish can't see the water. Or to take another metaphor, people whose thyroid quits functioning often complain about a huge array of ailments -- but they all are rooted in a simple failure of a small organ. They discuss and complain about their perceived problems -- which they don't even know could possibly have a common cause.

So too with voters and plurality. Voters in the main, don't even think that plurality is a choice. If they think about voting methods at all, they think that the way they learned to run elections in grade school is simply "how you vote." Every other system is then way behind simply because they are perceived as "alternatives" to the way God intended us to vote.

So, no, I'm not claiming that voters understand the problem. But, I am claiming from experience that when voters become aware of plurality's shortcomings -- when their consciousness is raised, as it were -- and when they know that there is a very simple change, proven system, invented in America, that eliminates those problems, they become VERY interested in the solution. For example, Minnesota is having a LOT of discussion about IRV right now.

The only place that used IRV and then dropped it was Ann Arbor, Michigan, and that was because it worked precisely as intended in 1975, allowing the voters for the Human Rights Party to have their second choices count for a Democratic candidate rather than elect the Republican (which is why the GOP brought -- and lost -- a suit to get rid of IRV, so they then simply dropped the figleaf of concern about what voters wanted and used their council majority to eliminate it, so that the Democrats would start losing elections again thanks to splitting up the non-GOP vote in a majority liberal city.)

Is it really necessary to wait until we suffer a painful loss caused by the plurality system to address the problem that Kari succinctly identified? Must we really continue living in a minefield that regularly causes an unnecessary loss (election of a candidate opposed by a majority of voters)?

M.65 proposed one way to deal with this problem--reduce voters choices to an arbitrary number, two -- which is only one more choice than we got in places like the Soviet Union.

The problem is that reducing voter choice (in addition to being theoretically unpalatable) also has the problem that voters don't like it. US experience at every level shows a uniform result: the more viable candidates there are on the ballot, the more voters are inclined to pay attention and participate.

I (and many others) argue that elections in which more people participate are better for a democracy, as they produce outcomes that more people have endorsed (the process, even if they opposed the eventual winner).

@ Chuck Butcher and Jenni Simonis: I think we can (and do) agree that fusion is a good idea.

But fusion only serves as a kind of ventilator for minor parties -- it keeps them alive, but still trapped in the nursing home. Because the ability to cross-nominate only helps a minor party that does not have a strong nominee to run. So while it can provide useful information to the public when a "fused" candidate is elected, and it does let voters express important information about their preferences (voting for the fused candidate on the minor party line tells us something about the electorate's views that we don't get if the voters have to take their lumps and vote for one major party candidate just to avoid helping elect one that they like even less).

But fusion is irrelevant to healthy minor parties that field their own candidates, because major parties don't cross-nominate. Thus, fusion helps keep minor parties going, but if they get well enough to try to get out of bed (run their own slate of candidates), they're right back where they started, and their closest cousin major party is right back where we are now, with vicious infighting between people who ought to be aligned with each other to defeat the other major. That's why you need some method of eliminating the vote-splitting problem, and that's what IRV does.

Obviously, if I like Sally and both the Dems and the Greens endorse her, then I get a nice benefit by being able to vote for Sally on whichever line I prefer the most, and the system gains something from knowing how many Sally voters like the Democratic Party platform and how many like the Green Party platform.

But even -- and this is most important -- if I prefer Indira the Independent most, but then Sally the Democratic/Green fused candidate, and both of them to Gordon to GOPster, without IRV I have a real problem. If I vote for my true favorite, Indira, I may well be helping elect Gordon the Gopster, fusion or not. What I need is a way to vote for Indira without helping Gordon, and IRV does that -- I vote (1) Indira, (2) Sally (on whichever party line I prefer) and then skip voting for Gordon entirely.

Thus, Sally can come talk to Indira's voters and, instead of threatening them with things like,"You know, you're just helping Gordon," she can say things like "If you like Indira best, then compare my overlap with her positions and Gordon's overlap, and it's clear that I should be your second choice." Respectful and friendly, in other words, rather than negative and hostile.

Fusion doesn't get us there. IRV does.

IRV is an important pro-democracy reform. My own city of Burlington (VT) has used it since 2006, and it works great. In our first IRV election for mayor we had higher voter turnout than recent elections, and voters had no difficulty -- fully 99.9% of ballots cast in the IRV race were valid. Also, exit polls showed voters overwhelmingly preferred IRV to the old system. By eliminating the "spoiler" issue from that campaign, voters simply voted their conscience without worrying about inadvertently helping elect the candidate they liked least (think Gore/Bush/Nader). You can find lots about it at Burlington's city election web site

"Dan, not sure what the problem is. The goal of election reform is to assure that the election system most accurately reflects the preferences of the voters, not to assure the victory of one or another political party."

Paul, Tom Cox did a great public service. He gave a link to Wikipedia on voting systems (an article much clearer than anything written here by IRV advocates).

It seems to me that many people here are discussing what the article calls voting theory, while most ordinary citizens I know are more interested in voting logistics.

From the Wikipedia article, it strikes me that I have seen or heard of some of these voting systems in organizational elections. A church where the Counting Committee is in charge of vote counting in an election of officers. It is a system where everyone is on the ballot the first time, the bottom 2 vote getters are then dropped off every round until there is a clear winner. The election can take a long time.

In 1988, at the Platform Convention, the DNC members were elected by what I suspect is close to the IRV system advocated here. 3 women running for DNC. 2 very well known candidates and a third one. Very heated campaigning, including a friend saying "please vote for my candidate, even though you don't like her, and as 2nd place if you don't want to vote for her as first choice".

The 3rd candidate giving the appearance of making some kind of deal with the first candidate. (Could something like that happen under IRV?) Conversations going on between delegates and candidates, some of them being conversations like "you haven't been very friendly in the past, but if you promise to be polite to me from now on, I'll vote for you as first choice as my friend asked me to".

That sort of thing might work in organizational elections, but I wonder how it would work in regular elections. Every proposal is subject to the Law of Unintended Consequences.

It seems for me, for IRV to succeed, there would have to be acceptance if not advocacy from the county clerks. My county clerk is an old friend, and I think IRV would be a headache for him and for all the county clerks. County clerks were a force in vote by mail happening.

Kari said, "Seriously, LT, if we promise you that you can still drop off your ballots exactly the same way you do now, will you consider IRV on the merits?"

Seriously, Kari, if the advocates here can prove they have discussed this with county clerks, that would create more support than snide remarks. And if more of this sort of explanation is given by IRV advocates,

"The point of IRV is that it allows you to vote exactly as you do now (by choosing only your top choice, and declining to rank the others); but it gives you the additional option of ranking candidates. " or "In a two-person race, there is no difference - NONE! - between IRV and what we have now."

it would look like a more serious campaign in favor of an issue than what has appeared here so far.

How long has BO been discussing IRV, and only NOW such details are being presented? What was the expectation, that the theory alone would impress people?

As someone who has worked more years in sales than I care to remember, it seems that explanations of the assets and liabilities of various voting systems, along with discussion of logistical concerns, would have "sold" the idea of IRV a lot more effectively than what sounds like an attitude of "you are supposed to be impressed by our examples from other jurisdictions, and accept the premise of our voting theory without asking such detailed logistical questions".

Jenni doesn't seem convinced. James X wisely says, "My only concern is that IRV ballots could prove confusing for some."

Steve has the right to say he sees it as a solution in search of a problem.

Does BO want to be a discussion "around the water cooler" as a general political blog? Or be ideologically pure on the subject that we have to change our voting system, and people who want to see a whole lot of detail before considering such wholesale change are not welcome?

Many people are barely scraping by, worried about paying bills, unemployed or underemployed, some having to move in with relatives or do other things to get by which they could not have imagined doing a year or 2 ago.

But that doesn't matter because progressives don't care about such issues affecting ordinary Oregonians nearly as much as they do about voting system theory?

Folks, almost 20 years ago, Kevin Phillips made fun of people active at both ends of the political spectrum who were so lacking in common sense, so out of touch with ordinary Americans, so involved in the discussion of unworkable abstractions and out of touch with the lives of ordinary voters that he said they "couldn't park a bicycle straight".

If it bothers you that I live out in the real world where academic discussions are rare or nonexistent, it bothers me that anyone here thinks IRV or fusion voting, or anything else can become a new part of Oregon's election procedure by law or ballot measure without the support of those from county clerks to ordinary voters.

Go back to the process which led to the current all vote by mail system happened. I remember when postcard registration was a new idea -- not that many decades ago, a person had to appear in front of a registrar to register to vote. Read about all the hard work it took for the Bottle Bill, or the Beach Bill so Oregonians could go all the way down to the ocean.

Or sit back and think blogs can change the world all by themselves.

Personally, I am still almost in awe of what happened Tuesday night. Perhaps Andy Rooney said it best,

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/11/07/60minutes/rooney/main4581854.shtml?source=RSS&attr=_4581854 The fact that the citizens of this country, 80 percent of whom are white, freely chose to elect a black man as their leader simply because they thought he was the best choice makes me think that we have a right to be proud of ourselves.

For all you IRV advocates, please post the bill number and link to any IRV legislation when it becomes available. If I happen to see any of the abovementioned sponsors and have a chance to talk with them face to face, I will ask them detailed questions about IRV legislation.

But this seems like a peer pressure situation where some think all good people put IRV as one of their top legislative priorities---or else are using the newspaper guest opinion as a jumping off place to discuss something which most people aren't really focusing on the in early Nov. 2008.

If it is a really popular idea, there will be at least one bill introduced and we can all read the text. There will be legislators writing guest opinions here or in newspapers about why it is a good idea. There will be extensive news coverage of the progress of the legislation. We're not there yet.

One more thing, Dan. "Many, for example, think that proportional representation offers a much fairer system ".

Some of the proportional representation systems I have heard of have a slate of legislators--if a party gets 55% of the vote they get 55% of the legislators or whatever. But are people voting for the party slate, or deciding on which individual will represent them? Are NAV just left out because everyone has to choose from slate A or slate B or slate C?

If the latter, why is that better? In my state rep. district, there was a heated campaign between Vicki and Richard, and many people called them by first name. Short of a parliamentary system, if the candidates run on a slate, who chooses the slate? Why would the people who think there is too much "D team vs R team " now want to go to that system?

The Public Comm. on the Legislature discussed nonpartisan legislature. We saw an example of that the year the state senate was 15-15. Unlike IRV or fusion or proportional representation, we have already seen how that works.

I'm sure some people will call me a dangerous radical for the above, but my guess is there are some readers of BO who may say RIGHT ON!

@ Dan P:

I think we've got different views about how elections work, Paul. No matter what system you devise, the winners will be those who can most effectively mobilize and deploy people and resources. Any system will either by intention or through unintended consequences build in advantages or disadvantages, and these can depend as much on the integrity (or manipulative intent, competence, etc.) of those implementing the system as anything. But I think it's pretty hard to maintain that the system itself is inherently better or worse, and will somehow guarantee a 'better' outcome.

There is, indeed, no perfect system for translating group preferences to a single outcome, one that all people could agree trumps all other systems.

There are, however, voting systems that reliably do a better job than others when measured against the criteria that most people find important. These could reasonably be called inherently better systems. Operating in the same electorate, they do a better job at translating the preferences of greater numbers of people into electoral choices.

For a good, readable book on the subject of how voting systems work (and often fail), presented in an above-board, objective way, see

"Behind the Ballot Box: A citizen's guide to voting systems" by Professor Douglas Amy. (http://is.gd/6R1T)

As an aside, IRV is not relevant to a discussion of proportional representation systems because IRV does not attempt to improve the breadth of representation Rather, IRV is simply a better way to pick a single winner from a slate of multiple candidates. It's still winner-take-all, just like plurality. So IRV is the cleanest, simplest upgrade we can make to our system because it's essentially a modular change -- you swap out an inferior voting method and put in place a better one, but no other changes are needed. It doesn't require changing to multi-member districts, etc.

@ Pete: I'm afraid I can't summarize the book because it's an hybrid academic book & workbook. That is, Amy is a political scientist whose specialty is psephology (study of voting systems, term derives from a word for stone, as would be used in a primitive voting system).

What the book does is introduce the criteria that you judge a voting system on -- essentially, the mainly-common-sense ideas for what makes a voting method good. Things like "the system should not result in a winner whom most voters oppose," etc.

Then it introduces most of the voting systems ever discussed in the world, tells a little bit about their strengths and weaknesses, and then tries to analyze them against the previously discussed criteria list.

The theme of the book is that you shouldn't take Amy's word for it -- it's a "citizen's guide," meaning you are expected to actively follow along and make your own choices, deciding which criteria are most important to you and, therefore, in some sense, selecting your favorite voting methods (because they do best on the criteria you find most important).

Of course the book introduces Arrow's Theorem, which is sort of the 2nd Law of voting systems, and (in lay terms) says that there is no perfect voting system (one that outperforms all other systems on all criteria). Arrow's proof of that theorem won him the Nobel Prize.

So, no, I can't really reduce it.

I can say, relevant to this discussion, that it's hard to find anyone, anywhere, who has studied voting methods for more than a few minutes who thinks plurality is worth a damn. While, per Arrow, there is no perfect system, there are clearly some systems that are superior to others, and plurality is one of the ones that falls behind.

In fact, to find a real determined argument for sticking with plurality, you basically have to work backwards from the result you want (for plurality to "win") to figure out criteria that allow that to happen --- for plurality to "win" a selection of the best voting method, you have to go in saying things like "I don't want to rank my preferences." But on any neutral set of criteria (those not chosen to favor one or the other), IRV trumps plurality hands down.

You could imagine the defense of plurality as done by Jon Stewart as a comedy routine on The Daily Show (in his NY street tough voice): "Yeah, da ting is, I want a system that turns my vote against me and helps elect the candidate I hate the most a lot of the time. Oh, and let's make sure that it causes lots of nasty fighting among the parties that are the closest on the issues . . . ; none of that sissy getting along stuff for me. And can we please have a system that only lets me vote for one candidate, no matter how many really good candidates there are on the ballot, so that my vote is discarded if this one candidate isn't too popular. Please, don't give me the option of a second choice."

Pete Forsyth - you wrote: "what real world problem does it solve? Does it actually get minor party candidates elected to office? If so, or if not, what's the result -- does it chip away at the overly-simplistic two party system? ... I think our civic discourse is enhanced by the existence of minor parties."

The biggest problem i see is that so few people participate. I know for me, and i presume for a substantial portion of voters and non-voters, that there is no major - or perhps even minor - party that reflects our views well. As far as i can see, our civic discourse currently pretty much ignores existing third parties. I would suggest that getting them into the media and the debates will require them winning seats, or at the very least regularly getting into double digits in elections. Under IRV, all of the people who currently would put third party candidates first will feel free to do so. This will raise their visibility, leading to more people being aware of them, and organizing and voting for them. So yes, even short of winning seats, this does "chip away at the overly-simplistic two party system"), and bring more people into politics.

"I think it would be nice if our system did not force us into binary choices."

IRV obviously solves this problem.

Do you have other questions/concerns?

(I'm in favor of far more radical changes than IRV, but will bite my tongue and stay on topics :-)

Chuck Butcher wrote, "If I'm so unhappy with a Democrat that I'd vote for somebody else, I obviously don't very much care if the Dem wins or not, so why do I need a 2 or 8 for him?"

Wow, this is certainly not true for me. I would've voted McKinney, then Nader, then Obama. But i still far prefer Obama to McCain (notice i wouldn't even have voted for McCain).

@ Dan P:

Motivating and mobilizing nonvoters to vote is only about changing elections systems to the degree that people are legally or structurally disenfranchised. Otherwise it's about a candidate and/or a party convincing people that they have enough of a stake in the outcome and the process that it's worth their time, energy or money to do so.

And plurality makes it very, very difficult for minor parties to persuade people that it's worth their time and energy to vote rather than sit out the election.

If you notice the sample ballot from Burlington, VT (thanks, Carl Fisher) IRV gives people the opportunity to write in their favorite candidate in the whole world as choice #1, then move on and rank the listed candidates as 2, 3, and so on.

This is huge -- today we have a lot of people like Nader who talk about how we need pernicious non-candidates on the ballot (i.e., "None of the Above") -- and a write-in vote, except in the very rare case of an organized write-in campaign, is functionally equivalent to "none of the above," and it's a throwaway vote.

But with IRV, the voter has the choice to register a complaint about the listed candidates (ranking a write-in as #1) but then continue to rank them so that their vote isn't wasted entirely.

So, yes, it removes a barrier to participation --- the feeling captured by the bumper sticker you occasionally see that says "Don't vote, it just encourages them."

OK Fine, I get it. There is no larger priority in the world than understanding IRV. If someone is unemployed, or thinks the legislature should have other priorities than IRV, they aren't really welcome here because all good people should see it as their mission in life to study and understand IRV, to believe it is a perfect system which can't be "gamed" the way the current system can be. That it is such a good idea that of course there are already 31 votes for it in the House and 16 in the Senate because the people here have talked to legislators and discovered that.

I just think you folks live in a different world than I do. Apparently in your world, a top priority issue is giving minor parties a fair shake.

In my world, ordinary people put ordinary concerns first--job, family, watching how our newly elected officials will work to change this state and country.

In my world, this email from a friend concerns me more than theory of voting systems and treatment of minor parties.

"Did you hear that Toby Forsberg lost his race in Canby too? Between Eberle, Forsberg and Adamson FururePAC spent $1.5 million and lost all three of those seats. And, Adamson lost against Wingard who was convicted of beating his kid w/ a screwdriver! Dems picked up five seats but in this blue tide we should have picked up 7-9 seats. I think some poor decisions were made and FuturePAC squandered a great opportunity. Nobody is talking about the missed opportunity though, everyone is giddy w/ the five seats picked up.

I'm curious to see which dem house member decides they have aspirations for higher office and want to make a name for themself by holding out on revenue bills. With only 36 votes any single dem can derail or force legislation to fit their own needs and desires. That's why we needed 38 or 39 seats. 36 is a good number but it will be difficult to manage if there are members that want to force issues to their adavntage. "

This isn't just the concerns of one friend, it echoes a discussion which has gone on for years. So, yes, I do believe it is a more important concern than IRV. Call me "not a progressive" or any other name and I will still feel that way.

I understand there are people here who would rather debate IRV than discuss whether FP made all the right decisions.

I also remember the years when Democrats had more than a razor-thin majority and the dynamics which developed. Maybe the IRV advocates here aren't old enough to remember back that far, but I do.

And when Dan Lavey et al were at the Portland City Club, one of them made a crack like "There are 36 Democratic seats but with Schaufler maybe there are only 35, who knows what he will do!".

I think that was a reality-based comment. If I am in the capitol building and have a chance to talk to any legislators, I will say "I understand that IRV is a favorite issue with some bloggers, but I wonder where it is on your priority list". THAT is reality.

And Pete, I love this:

I would add to your criteria, "All of the people who also understand the ins-and-outs of IRV, and its strategic consequences, and take the time to evaluate their choices carefully." I'm not so confident that would lead to a similar number of voters.

@ LT: I'm searching in vain for any post where any IRV proponent made any claim like "there's no larger priority in the world than understanding IRV."

I certainly understand why someone could think that there are lots more important things to think about than IRV (though you send a mixed message by participating in threads about things that, if I understand you, aren't important.)

My own take on it is that IRV is a pretty small potatoes reform. But important anyway.

In fact, because of the small nature of the change in adopting IRV --- a simple replacement of an inferior election method for single-winner races with a better one --- that is itself a reason that we should be able to get a local-option IRV bill through and signed in 2009 (a bill that would give authority for any county, municipality, or special-purpose district to use IRV).

The fact that IRV is a very small, neutral step towards a better election system, creates a test for Oregon Democrats in Salem: if you can't pass this, what can you do? If you're unwilling to pass a pro-voter reform just because it might help Republican voters as often as it helps Democratic voters (since the major party voters are even bigger beneficiaries of solving the spoiling/vote-splitting problem than minor parties are), then what reforms will you pass?

IRV isn't about helping minor parties, or major parties. It's about helping eliminate a problem that voters of all stripes face: plurality delivers predictably pathological results a good percentage of the time when there are more than two candidates for any single-winner office. To avoid having their vote backfire on them, voters are required to estimate the likely votes of everyone else in the district to decide whether casting a vote for their preferred candidate could wind up helping elect the one they prefer the least. By getting rid of that problem, all voters are helped.

Feel free to think that's unimportant. But if we can't rectify such a clear problem with such an easy solution available to us, then I have to wonder about our ability to tackle the "more important" problems where the "solutions," if any, are fiendishly difficult and require hitting a lot more people where they live.

I can if you can provide a real-world example of asking voters to rate candidates via pairwise preferences ... I don't know of any place that uses Condorcet voting.

The endless cycle is a problem -- it's probably the main reason that Condorcet, a favorite of many voting wonks on theoretical grounds -- isn't used in public elections.

If the cycle occurs, it doesn't just produce a dissatisfying answer, it produces no answer at all. Thus, you wind up having to create rules like "least loser" (since they all lose against one and beat one, the "winner" is the one who lost by the least in the comparisons).

Imagine three closely matched candidates vying for something -- say, Obama asks Wyden to take over the federal Human Services department, and three strong Dems decide to go for that senate seat. I'll call them B, K, and W to pick three names, totally randomly. Say that B beats K, and K beats W (the woman candidate), but W has beaten B --- a circle, in other words.

Of course it's possible to figure out the decision rule to break the cycle in advance, and it's possible to imagine asking voters to do these pairwise voting comparisons . . . but I would hate to be the one to try to explain it, much less sell it.

And I would think that officeholders aren't crazy about the possibility of taking office under a least-loser rule. Not sure how the voters will feel about it either, despite its theoretical advantages. I think there's a good chance that having a Condorcet winner who actually won on the basis of the "least loser" rule is a recipe for real partisan bitterness and problems.

Imagine if D edges R and R beats I, but I beats D. If R wins on least-loser, the D's will be VERY unhappy, because D beat R, but R gets the seat (and adds to the R strength in the caucus, potentially tipping redistricting etc.). I wins on least-loser, the R's will have that same problem. And if the D is seated, the I's will claim the system is rigged because we're seated a candidate who lost to an I.

I can't provide the names for the example because plurality doesn't allow us to do pairwise comparisons and tends to create a two-party dominated system. But Condorcet would allow multiple parties to flourish.

So our inability to imagine how a cycle occurs is kind of like our inability to "see" those hidden images in the optical illusion posters. You can't make out the image until, suddenly, your brain figures out the perceptual shift required. When we try using the names we know -- the names who have come to the forefront via the two-party dominated system that plurality produces, we fall into dismissing the phenomenon.

I think it's easier to imagine with other preferences:

For example, if we take the readership of BlueOregon, I bet we all have pie preferences, but they might well produce a cycle if we elect our favorite pie.

So I can imagine apple beating pumpkin beating blueberry but blueberry beating apple ...

Or do it with ice cream:

Vanilla beats chocolate beats strawberry but strawberry beats vanilla. What's the favorite?

Or pizza topping combos: pepperoni beats cheese which beats veggie but veggie beats pepperoni. Which is the favorite?

The point is, where the "supply" of viable candidates isn't restricted by a systemic factor (like plurality elections), you're going to see more viable candidates more often. Condorcet means a greater diversity of viable candidates can emerge. greater diversity of viable candidates means that you will wind up with a cycle some fraction of the time.

Even with all the gobbledygook explinations here, it still smacks of sports polling and the BCS. In addition, even if we have a preference in the beginning, why can't we change that preference before the '2nd tally' after you eliminate the last place preferred person?

If it is not broke - why fix it? Why can't we just leave things alone? The reason there is a percieved 'problem' with the voting as it stands now is because those who lose using the current system are just sore losers who can not grasp the notion and definition of 'competition'. Just because you lose by the rules, does not entitle you to change those rules simply for your own narcassistic banefit.

@ Eric: just curious, Eric, why would you need an opportunity to change your rankings if no one gets a majority of first-choice votes and the bottom candidate is dropped.

If you ranked the candidates in the order you preferred them, then there's only two cases here. Either:

(a) your top pick is still in the running (wasn't eliminated), in which case your vote is helping her stay that way and may help her win.

(b) Or your top pick has been eliminated because she finished at the bottom, and so now your vote is being counted for your second-choice instead of being discarded entirely.

What could there be about your top pick being eliminated would make you have to (or want to) reorder your picks in the lower positions?

If anyone's still reading in this thread, the League of Women Voters has an interesting election methods study out:

http://www.lwvor.org/documents/ElectionMethods2008.pdf

George, thanks for the link. Much more informative than the BO discussions have been.

Anyone who has ever been in sales knows that customers have questions: about the various features (whether it be details about hard goods or whether it be questions about the fabric in clothing) about how something works (computer, cleaning machine of some kind, appliance) why this would make their life better or solve a particular problem.

"You should buy this--it is good" is a way to convince shoppers to walk away without buying.

I've worked too many years of my life in sales (retail, product demonstrator, etc.) to accept any new idea without question.

Here is what I found really interesting in the LMV report: criteria for evaluating voting systems, history of IRV and other systems, that range voting is what some Olympic sports use to judge events, one particular chart, example of IRV voting using the names of mystery writers, pros and cons of IRV.

The attitude of the IRV advocates on Blue Oregon has been "it is your civic duty to spend your spare time educating yourself on IRV and then after you have learned about it, you will agree with us that it is the great voting system which will solve every problem currently existing".

Why will that create a groundswell for IRV?

No one says it will change the campaign finance situation. What would it do to the current practice of a caucus choosing to put a ton of money on a legislative candidate who still doesn't win, while ignoring candidates elsewhere in the state because some "professional" in Portland decided that district couldn't be won?

Would it be a radical idea to suggest maybe better legislators were elected prior to the establishment of campaign fundraising legal entitities like Future Pac (est. 1993)? Why are donors contributing to groups like FP rather than to individual candidates---do they trust the caucus campaign arm staff with their money, or do they not want their names on individual C & E reports?

Mandating IRV for every election in Oregon would not answer that question, but maybe some of the IRV supporters don't want that question asked.

LMV voting system evaluation criteria included:

Increase voter participation

Easy to use and administer

Prevent fraud and political manipulation

Encouraging issue oriented campaigns

Producing results seen as legitimate

Reducing campaign spending

Establishing close links between constituents and representatives

Chart 1--- was very interesting, showing number of districts with only one candidate or with uncontested primaries. Why would IRV matter to voters in those districts?

The LMV report mentions PCOL bill for nonpartisan legislature, and says Range Voting is what is used to judge some Olympic events. Interesting instructions they showed for IRV--I can just imagine what would happen in a recount. The instructions said you may make as many choices as you please, but do not put the same figure opposite more than one name.

The report mentions one type of IRV where the ballot is the sort of answer sheet used on standardized tests, where voters fill in numbered ovals. Some teachers use the verb "bubble" to describe that process. On such answer sheets, there is always the problem of marking the wrong box (Gosh, I meant the answer to # 3 to be 1 and answer to #4 to be 2, but I lost my place.)

There are people who live in districts like House Dist. 19 where there was an enthusiastic campaign against Kevin Cameron. Many people wanted Day to defeat Cameron, PERIOD! There was no way they would list a second choice. In such districts, people are glad to see 2 candidates on the ballot, and I'm not sure there have ever been 3 candidates in that district (there has been a 3rd party candidate if no Democrat was running).

In the LMV example, it says the lowest candidate is eliminated and "her ballots are transferred to her supporter's second choices".

What if a voter didn't want their 2nd choice votes distributed to others?

"You just haven't studied this well enough, or you would understand that should not be a problem" (which seems to be the attitude of some IRV supporters) is not a responsive answer. And nothing wins elections (any candidate, any issue) if the perception is that the advocates are saying "quit asking so many questions and just support us!".

Why would people in charge of counting votes want to deal with those IRV logistics? That is why I think IRV won't get anywhere until there are county clerks speaking in favor of it. They have a right to be heard on this issue.

According to the report, Measure 20-51 on Sept. 2001 ballot in Eugene failed with a 66% no vote. Same as the 2008 no vote on Measure 65. Could it be that the general population is satisfied with the voting system we have?

The report says Buckley's IRV bill passed out of committee but never reached the floor. Could it be there weren't enough elected legislators to support it? How many of the new legislators put IRV on their list of priorities? Does everyone who voted for that bill in committee or signed on as a co-sponsor still view it as a priority, now that there is a budget shortfall which will require a lot of legislator time and attention?

On the list of pros and cons of IRV, there are 6 cons. Why are those never discussed on BO by those pushing IRV voting? Wouldn't it be a good strategy to take each of those in turn and say how it could be alleviated, or aren't voters supposed to care about those concerns?

The report says IRV was invented in 1870 by a professor at MIT. Maybe that is why some of us think of this as a system beloved by math geeks.

I was once a recount observer. Someone marked a candidate's name on the ballot and then wrote that candidate's name on the write-in line. There have been news stories about people circling a candidate's name when that was not what the instructions said. How would such problems be dealt with if IRV were in place. Would there be more such problems in the process of adjusting to a new system?

Yes, I can understand why there are some people who believe the theory of IRV is something we should all believe in. But as the saying goes, that and a few bucks will buy you a latte.

I think there is too much of the bad type of partisanship (which Gov. Jindal referred to as "no party is likely to win if their bumper sticker slogan is "vote for us because the other guys are worse") in elections.

I don't think IRV is the answer to that. I thought Measure 65 might be the answer. It lost. That's the way the Oreo disintegrates.

If there were ever a panel discussion on IRV vs. other voting systems held locally, and I was able to attend, I would find it interesting.

But I have never been a voter who willingly followed people saying things like "you have read the report, therefore you agree with everything it says".

Did the Public Comm. on the Legislature discuss this issue? Was that what former Gov. Roberts and former Speaker/ St. Sen. Kerans discussed at one PCOL meeting? If so, look it up here http://landru.leg.state.or.us/pcol and see what commissioners said about it. I don't recall as much support for that as for some of the other reforms discussed.

If you know the bill number of Buckley's IRV bill, please post it on BO so that we can all read it. Then we can also look at the measure history.
But be aware that if people like the current voting system, they are not going to change just because some math geeks and others on a blog think the system should be revamped.

There may be some IRV advocates who slam me for not saying their idea is the best idea since sliced bread. That won't make me support it.

But a serious discussion of the issues in the LMV report, the bill number of Buckley's bill, and other such concrete information would be better than "they use it in other jurisidictions" as if we are supposed to have it imposed on Oregon elections without intelligent debate.

Whatever their disagreements, Oregonians have a history of making up their own minds, and not having someone's bright idea imposed on them.

Report from Dems4IRV:

From: Jim Robison <[email protected]> Date: Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 1:39 AM Subject: [Dems4IRV] IRV moving ahead in Oregon To: [email protected] It's been a few years since I last reported anything to this email group, but there is definitely something to report now. The Democratic Party of Oregon has adopted IRV as a legislative agenda item. A bill supporting local option for IRV has already been pre-filed for the next legislative session (starts in January) by the Secretary of State-Elect. With strong Democratic majorities in both houses of the legislature, and the incoming Secretary of State supporting it, it looks very likely that Oregon will pass a bill directing the Secretary of State to draft rules which will allow any local jurisdiction in Oregon to use IRV. One of the obstacles we had when I was pushing IRV a few years ago was that some counties still used punch card ballots which did not allow for easy adoption of IRV. Now that all counties in Oregon use optical scan ballots, it is possible for any of them to implement IRV. Portland's chapter of Alliance for Democracy has been working hard to make this happen.

OK, so now we have more details: The Democratic Party of Oregon has adopted IRV as a legislative agenda item. A bill supporting local option for IRV has already been pre-filed for the next legislative session (starts in January) by the Secretary of State-Elect. With strong Democratic majorities in both houses of the legislature, and the incoming Secretary of State supporting it, it looks very likely that Oregon will pass a bill directing the Secretary of State to draft rules which will allow any local jurisdiction in Oregon to use IRV.

1) IRV will be about local elections, not legislative or other elections previously mentioned.

2) Someday, someone will post a bill # for the bill mentioned as being presession filed.

3) Since it is a bill about IRV in local jurisdictions, advocates should be talking to their own county clerks a) to get their input b) to ask for their support

4) This bill will need to gain committee support, so after the committees are named and the bill assigned to a committee, advocates will need to talk to their own legislators and others to advocate for early committee hearings. Assuming the bill gets passed out of committee, it will need 31 votes in the House and 16 votes in the Senate. I have already communicated with my own state rep. about IRV and got a response suggesting it wasn't a high priority and questioning whether IRV was really the best answer to any problems. George, is your state rep. going to be one of the advocates for the bill?

5) Democratic party resolutions don't control legislators, and sometimes party activists openly oppose the actions of legislators. Anyone who has been called "not a real Democrat" for siding with sitting legislators rather than a majority of the state central committee on particular legislation knows this.

Alliance for Democracy is a worthwhile group, but Portland's chapter will need to advocate with legislators from around the state to get the needed votes. Said another way, 5)does not change the reality of 4).

George, you may think I am an opponent of IRV. Actually, I am a skeptic. Where I live, we seldom have more than 2 candidates for most offices. I see IRV as a solution in some jurisdictions but not necessarily where I live. And IRV seems more a crusade which supposedly "all good people should support" rather than an attempt to pass a bill by discussing concrete information.

When I hear specific legislators speaking out in favor of a particular bill number, then I will be able to read the actual bill for myself and make a decision. No one is required to take IRV or any other bill on faith alone, regardless of what some advocates seem to expect from Blue Oregonians.

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/35018964.html?elr=KArksc8P:Pc:UthPacyPE7iUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUU David Durenberger: Avoid the agony of recounts, and more, with instant runoff With this well-tested procedure, we might get not only better elections but also better campaigns. By DAVID DURENBERGER Last update: November 24, 2008, Minneapolis Star Tribune We all were hoping that the bruising and expensive race for the U.S. Senate seat would end on Election Day. Instead, the $40 million-plus campaign continues to permeate our headlines and limit our forward momentum. The Coleman-Franken race is now in a contentious recount and is almost certainly headed to the courts from there. The recount and its aftermath will be a protracted and high-priced affair, and no matter the outcome, most voters will be left wondering if there is not a better way to express our preferences. Instant-runoff voting (IRV) would have produced an entirely different election. Under IRV, voters rank candidates in order of preference -- 1, 2, 3 -- knowing that if their first choice doesn't place among the top finishers, their vote will continue to count. The votes cast for the least popular candidate are not "wasted" but rather are redistributed to the more popular candidates, based on the voters' second choices, until one candidate emerges with a majority of votes. It's a runoff that happens in a single election, avoiding the need for separate, costly and low-turnout second election. How would IRV have made a difference? •It would have most likely produced a decisive winner on Election Day, with the affirmative support of a majority of the voters. •It would have encouraged candidates to broaden their bases and formulate issue-focused and positive campaigns. In plurality-take-all elections, candidates tend to engage in divisive politics in order to motivate their base. IRV counters that trend by giving candidates a tangible, vote-getting reason to moderate their attacks in order attract "second choice" support. •It would have leveled the playing field, giving all candidates a meaningful opportunity to influence the tone and substance of the race and capture votes. •It would have eliminated the "spoiler" and "wasted" vote problems and let people vote their true preferences without worrying about throwing their votes away or helping elect someone they didn't like. •The increased competitiveness and inclusiveness of IRV would have broadened and enriched the political discourse. I also speculate that IRV might help to lessen the influence of money in political campaigns, because the major parties would be encouraged to adopt positions closer to where the bulk of the voters are, in spite of the influence of money. Plurality elections are becoming the norm in Minnesota and elsewhere, a trend that highlights the weakness of our current system. This year alone, five Minnesota races -- in addition to the Senate race -- were decided by a minority of voters: the Third and Sixth Congressional District races; House Districts 41A and 51A, and Senate District 16, where a recount is also underway. In all, 14 statewide elections have been won with less than majority support since 1998, when Jesse Ventura won the governor's seat with just 37 percent of the vote. The democratic process is based on the principle of majority rule. In elections where only one candidate can win, IRV ensures that the winner is decided by the majority of voters. IRV is not new. It is a well-tested and popular system in use or planned for use in nearly two dozen jurisdictions around the United States and internationally in countries such as Ireland and Australia. Minneapolis voters approved its adoption 65-35 in 2006 and will be the first to demonstrate how IRV works in Minnesota in 2009. IRV will appear on the St. Paul ballot once a court challenge is settled, and there are emerging campaigns and interest in other jurisdictions around the state. Minnesota and its reputation for good government have taken some hits from the Senate brouhaha. It's too late to duck that punch or the ones we can expect in the weeks -- and maybe months -- yet to come. It's not too late, though, to make sure we don't get into this situation again. It's time for Minnesota to consider adopting IRV and preserve its tradition as a leader in electoral integrity and good governance.

George, yes, IRV may have made a difference had it been in place in Minnesota. But what if voters ranked Coleman first, Barkley second, Franken third?

Or wouldn't that have mattered as long as we knew the results without a recount?

The man who took Hubert Humphrey's Senate seat after Muriel Humphrey left (having held the seat after her husband's death) did some intelligent things and some stupid things.

The latter is explained here: "Durenberger was unanimously denounced by the Senate on July 25, 1990 for unethical conduct relating to outside income."

That story does not address why Oregonians should support IRV.

Unless, of course, you want to say it should have been in place for the 1992 primary for US Senate. Had voters chosen Lonsdale as a first choice, Joe Wetzel as a second choice, and AuCoin as a third choice as a protest against the brainless AuCoin ads, that would have been interesting.

But that is "what if" history.

@ LT: If a majority of voters ranked Coleman ahead of Franken (first or second), then he would win the election (as he might anyway).

I don't know what else to say -- IRV isn't a way to stack the deck to make sure my favorite or your favorite wins, it's a way to deal with the failure of the current system to cope with more than two candidates without producing winners who only have a plurality of support --- which tends to force voters to strategize about their vote and how it might backfire on them, rather than be able to vote with confidence that their vote for A won't wind up helping B win.

" it's a way to deal with the failure of the current system to cope with more than two candidates without producing winners who only have a plurality of support "

Noble goal, George. But with regard to Oregon legislation, it has an uphill battle among those of us who live in jurisdictions where there are seldom more than 2 candidates.

The situation in Minn. doesn't have any impact on why Oregonians living in such jurisdictions should be gung ho for IRV, esp. at a time when there are so many other pressing issues.

Have you talked to your legislators about the issue?

@ LT: Yes, I have spoken to my legislators about IRV, and to the SoS candidates, and to the many people (including Leg Aides and others) who follow BlueOregon.

As for the idea that we don't have the problem (multiple candidacies), that's a bit like saying that you don't need life insurance because you haven't ever died, or you don't need fire insurance because you've never had a fire loss.

We can debate the relevancy of the many examples of spoiled races, where minor party candidates led to the election of a winner with only minority support (Begich in Alaska being only the latest), but I must say I'm having a hard time understanding why you discount the experience in other states.

Whether you or I personally have multiple candidates on our ballots hardly seems dispositive when you're talking about a statewide reform that would provide local voters with the opportunity to use the system that their Constitution explicitly endorses. From the stance you have taken in your comments, one would think you would be the leading supporter of a local-option IRV bill, so that we can get the local Oregon experience you seem to suggest is so vital.

One more from Minnesota: about the SoS who is interested in IRV and supports same-day registration (and wishes they had vote-by-mail) --

http://www.onthecommons.org/content.php?id=2292 The man in the middle of Minnesota’s Senate race recount is passionate about making sure every vote counts. 25 Nov 2008 / Onthecommons.org Editors Topics Filed Under: Politics and Government Tags: democracy; elections; Minnesota What happens or doesn’t happen in Washington over the next two years may depend on who wins the Minnesota senate race, in which Democrat challenger Al Franken and Republican incumbent Norm Coleman are now separated by about 200 votes of 2.9 million cast. Democrats are just two seats shy of 60 in the Senate, which is the magic number at which they can shut down Republican filibusters against progressive legislation. America is still waiting for results in two races. One will be decided December 2 in a Senate run-off election in Georgia, and the other depends on the laborious and already controversial outcome of a hand-by-hand recount of ballots in Minnesota’s Franken-Coleman contest. Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie finds himself smack in the middle of what pundits say is the fiercest election in state history, and certainly the most expensive. Coleman, who won in 2002 after his opponent Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash, is famous as a combative campaigner. Franken meanwhile is deeply determined to win back the seat once held by Wellstone, his close friend. Both camps are raising large sums of money to cover costs of monitoring the recount and whatever lawsuits may ensue. Coleman’s election night margin see-saws up and down with each day’s recount results. The race may be decided by what happens to challenged ballots that will be reviewed by Ritchie and the State Canvassing Board. It is Mark Ritchie’s challenge to ensure that every legitimate vote is counted in this hard-fought contest for which the whole country is waiting for the results. Already Ritchie voted into office in 2006 on the Democratic Farmer Labor (DFL) ticket, as Democrats are called in Minnesota has become a favorite target of right-wing commentators here and around the country. But he has also drawn complaints from the Franken camp for some of his decisions. Each day Ritchie faces phalanxes of lawyers and recount observers from both sides as he tries to ensure the election results are accurate, fair and above partisan reproach. To that end, he appointed judges with ties to Republicans and the state’s Independence Party (but none with apparent Democratic ties) to join him on the board that will oversee the recount’ final results. Minnesota Governor Pawlenty, a Republican, has stated his public support for Ritchie and for the process despite complaints from the right-wing of his party. Making sure that every vote counts is exactly the reason Mark Ritchie ran for Secretary of State. He realized the vulnerable nature of democracy in 2002 (not just in Florida, but in his home state) when Senator Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash two weeks before election day. Ritchie, a former high-ranking official in the state’s agriculture department and founder of the Institute for Trade and Agriculture Policy, was shocked to learn that Minnesota’s then Republican Secretary of State tried to block people who had voted for Wellstone on absentee ballots from casting a new ballot for Walter Mondale, who succeeded Wellstone as the Democratic nominee in the race against Coleman. (Several years earlier, a Democratic Secretary of State had done just the opposite when a new Republican candidate for Minnesota governor was added to the ticket at the last minute after a sex scandal and went on to win a very narrow victory.) This struck Ritchie a longtime advocate for small farmers, sustainable agriculture, fair trade policies, and human rights as deeply unfair. It was not just that these absentee ballots could conceivably have made a difference in the election, but that citizens were to be denied the right to vote. (The Secretary of State ultimately allowed Minnesota voters to cast new absentee ballots.) Ritchie views voting as what he calls, “a civic commons, which is essential to good government and democracy itself. But that commons can be taken from us by measures that make it difficult for many people to vote.” In 2004, Ritchie took a leave of absence from the Institute of Agriculture and Trade Policy to lead National Voice, a non-partisan organization working to increase voter turnout across America in the 2004 election. (You may not know the organization but you might remember the “November 2” t-shirts seen everywhere in the weeks before election day that year.) Ritchie then made his successful run for Secretary of State in 2006, and did all he could to turn out voters for this year’s election. It ranked first in the nation as it had in 2004. “Not withstanding Garrison Keillor’s claim that we are all above average here, that’s not the reason we have higher vote totals than other states” he explains. “It’s that we have a system that encourages people to vote.” Central to that system is same-day registration, which means that you can register at the polling place on election day if you can prove you live in the precinct by showing an ID or even a utility bill. “Ten states have same-day registration or something very close,” Ritchie notes, “and most of them have among the highest voter turn-out.” Ritchie also champions voting by mail which is done in Oregon, most of Washington State and the city of Milwaukee as a “great way for some communities, especially in rural areas, to increase voter turnout.” He is interested to see how another new idea known as Instant Run-Off or Ranked Choice voting will work. This system, which has been adopted in a number of cities, including ten pilot locations in North Carolina and his hometown of Minneapolis, lets you vote for more than one candidate by ranking your choices in order of preference. The hope is that this system will bring fresh thinking into mainstream politics by making people feel more comfortable voting for third parties. It takes away the fear that voting for your favorite candidate (think Ralph Nader or Pat Buchanan in 2000) might help your second favorite candidate lose to an opponent (think George W. Bush or Al Gore) you really do not want to see in office. Under Instant Run-Off Voting all top-ranked votes are tabulated and if no candidate wins a majority then the second choices of people who voted for the candidate with the lowest overall totals are tabulated. This process continues until one office-seeker has a majority of votes. The Irish president, Australian House of Representatives, London mayor as well as the Republican leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives, are elected this way and the idea is gaining ground in places that do not use the proportional voting systems found in continental Europe and many other countries around the world. To increase voter turnout in Minnesota, Ritchie is working on automatically updating a person’s voting registration when they send a change-of-address form to the post office. He found ways to streamline voting for the 80,000 Minnesotans living abroad, including troops stationed in Iraq, by allowing them to receive ballots by email that were returned through a special arrangement with FedEx. He’s also launching a campaign to reinvigorate the teaching of civics in Minnesota schools so young people can learn about the electoral system and why voting is important. “Some people question efforts to expand the number of voters by saying democracy depends on the quality, not the quantity, of voters,” Ritchie says. “Both are important. Voters being informed is a very important element of the democracy commons.” In an election year when voter suppression bureaucratic hurdles to voting, especially for lower-income and first-time voters has become a major issue in campaign coverage, Ritchie is well aware of the power of Secretaries of State to either expand or constrict the number of people participating in the democratic process. “It’s part of my job to make it possible for everyone to go to the polls and make sure their vote counts. You make decisions morning, noon and night that help or hinder people in voting. “Helping people participate in elections is part of the historic process in America of extending voting rights,” he adds. “We expanded suffrage to women and Native Americans and, thanks to the civil rights movement, to all African-Americans and then to 18-year-olds. This is all part of a battle for enfranchisement that continues today. It’s an essential part of democracy and of the commons that everyone should be easily able to vote.”

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