[EM] Instant Runoff Voting - collection of definitions

[Instant Runoff Voting supporter]

Greetings Janet,

    I have collected a number of definitions given recently in posts from
different lists.
    Maybe you can find something that you can use.

Regards, Donald

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 11/14/00
     http://www.igc.org/cvd/irv/vermont/index.html  Instant-Runoff Voting
May Get a Look As Uncertainty in U.S. Election Continues,  By DAVID WESSEL
and JAMES R. HAGERTY, Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
    Here is how instant-runoff voting works: In a race with more than two
candidates, voters mark not only their first choice, but their second,
third, fourth choice, and so on. If no candidate gets a majority, the
losing candidates' votes are reallocated until one candidate has a
majority. If the U.S. used such a system, votes for Ralph Nader and Patrick
Buchanan (or, in earlier elections, Ross Perot or George Wallace) would
have been reallocated to whomever their supporters listed as a second
choice.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 11/16/00
Jason Johnston <Jason.Johnston at oberlin.edu>
[instantrunoff] letters to the editors
        Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) eliminates that flaw.  With IRV, voters
can choose to rank a second and third choice, and if their first choice is
at the bottom of the pile, their votes are redistributed to their second,
and so on, until the canidate prefered by the majority wins.
 (check www.farivote.org for more info).

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 11/17/00
First Publication: Lansing State Journal,
INSTANT RUNOFFS WILL END 'LOSER-TAKES-ALL':
   Luckily, there is a proven way to find the majority's choice with only
one ballot.  How?  Use a full-choice ballot that lets voters rank their
choices instead of only choosing one.
    Then, if no candidate earns a majority, the least popular one is
dropped and a runoff is held instantly.  In this runoff, each ballot goes
to the highest-ranked candidate marked on it, skipping over dropped
candidates.  This repeats until one candidate has a majority.
   This "instant runoff voting" ends minority winners-without-mandates and
would promote positive campaigns, as candidates would appeal to opponents'
supporters for second and third choice rankings.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 11/21/00
Village Voice in New York
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0047/solomon.shtml
Florida Fiasco Puts Radical Reforms on the Table
Taking Back the Vote, by Alisa Solomon
Under IRV, long in use in national elections in Australia and Ireland,
instead of simply marking an X next to the most-desired candidate, voters
would rank them according to preference. If no candidate emerges with a
majority after all the first-choice votes are counted, then the candidates
who received the fewest number of 1's are eliminated. The 2's on those
ballots are then distributed among the remaining candidates until one
achieves a majority.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 11/20/00
[instantrunoff] Minnesota column on IRV
Thursday, Nov 16 issue of the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
http://www.startribune.com/stOnLine/cgi-bin/article?thisStory=82940277
Published Thursday, November 16, 2000, Lori Sturdevant:
    Recent elections have made instant runoff voting look intriguing.
Alan Shilepsky  said people could vote with numbers. They could mark their
ballot with a "1" next to their first choice for an office, a "2" next to
their second choice, and so on.
   The votes would be counted according to the number-one choices. But if
that initial count failed to give one candidate more than 50 percent of the
vote, the count would continue with another step. The ballots for the
candidate in last place would be resorted according to their second-place
choices. The sorting would continue until one candidate's count crossed the
50 percent threshold.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 11/20/00
[instantrunoff] Houston column on IRV
Copyright 2000 The Houston Chronicle Publishing Company
  The Houston Chronicle - View Related Topics
  November 15, 2000, Wednesday 3 STAR EDITION
BYLINE: DOUG SANDAGE; Sandage, a Houston attorney and mediator, was a 2000
Green Party candidate for the U.S. Senate.
Instead of voting for just one candidate, voters would note their
preferences in a 1-2-3 sequence. If their first (or second) preference were
not among the top two vote-getters, their second (or third) preference
would automatically receive their votes.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 12/02/00
COMMON SENSE, by Paul Jacob, [the Term Limits Guy]
There's an easy electronic solution, though: instant runoffs. Say you want
Nader to win -- but if Nader loses, you'd rather have Gore than Bush. Under
instant runoff, you'd vote for Nader as First Choice, Gore as Second
Choice. If no one gets a majority and your First Choice loses, the system
instantly gives your vote to your Second Choice.
It's a new idea. You can find out more about it at www.fairvote.org.

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