[EM] A real Demorep-style nightmare:

[Bart Ingles]

A real example of a runoff-type election failure (no reason to think it
would have been different under IRV).  This from the recent Discover
Magazine article:

>   The advantages of an approval vote— and the perils of plurality voting— are
>   most apparent in contests like the Louisiana governor's race of 1991. The
>   primary that year was dominated by three candidates: Edwin Edwards, the
>   often-indicted former governor; David Duke, a former grand wizard of the Ku
>   Klux Klan; and incumbent governor Buddy Roemer. Edwards won the
>   primary with 34 percent of the vote compared with 32 percent for Duke and
>   27 percent for Roemer. But it was Duke's surprisingly strong showing, despite
>   his overtly racist stance, that won national headlines. Time and Newsweek ran
>   long articles about the politics of hate in America. Bumper stickers,
>   anticipating an Edwards-Duke runoff election, urged Louisianans to "Vote for
>   the crook: It's important." 
> 
>   In the end, Edwards walloped Duke by a 61 to 39 percent margin. But the
>   result was hardly a triumph for the runoff system. Say what you will about
>   Louisiana voters, it's unlikely that anyone other than Edwards's core
>   supporters really wanted to put a "crook" in the governor's office. And the
>   election returns from November show beyond a doubt that very few people
>   approved of Duke, outside of the 32 percent who originally voted for him.
>   Roemer, on the other hand, had no strikes against him except that he had
>   recently switched parties. In an approval vote, he might well have finished
>   first, sparing Louisianans the choice between racketeering and racism. By the
>   same token, approval voting might have spared Minnesotans from electing a
>   professional wrestler to the governor's seat two years ago, or New
>   Hampshirites from handing Pat Buchanan a triumph in the 1996 presidential
>   primary. 

More recent news on Edwards's whereabouts:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/01/09/MN170971.DTL

http://www.theadvocate.com/news/ewedefault.asp