[EM] Alan Greenspan, Bucklin, and IRVing:

[I Like IRVing]

  ------------- Forwarded Letter ------------
From: Rob Richie <fairvote at compuserve.com>
Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2001 23:44:45 -0400
Subject:  Guess who's (nearly) using IRV? Alan Greenspan....

Hi, Folks,

We just came across some rather remarkable
information. The Federal Reserve Banks -- the
network of regional institutions that
work under Alan Greenspan and the Federal
Reserve -- elect six members of their boards
of directors (out of a total of nine) for three-year
terms, with three directors selected/elected
each year. Groups of stockholders of member banks
make up the electorate. There's a somewhat
complicated nomination process; typically a relatively
small number of candiates vie for each seat.

And yes.... "preferential voting" is used in these
elections. Voters rank candidates: one, two,
three (no subsequent choices are done). If a candidate
wins a majority of first-choice votes, he or she wins.
If not, all second choices are added to first choice
totals. Whichever candidate has the most votes,
if more than a majority, is elected. If not, the ballots
then add in third choices, and whoever has the most
votes wins.

This system is the "Bucklin" system that has an
interesting history in American elections. In public
elections, the problem has been that many voters stop
ranking  candidates, as they don't want a second-choice
to count against the chances of their first choice.

[Don here: It is good if the voters of the larger factions only make one
choice when voting in a Bucklin election.  This will cause Bucklin and any
of the other weird methods to become more like Instant Runoff Voting.]

Still, pretty darn close to instant runoff voting, and a
nice mainstream model to point to as endorsing the
basic concept. With cumulative voting electing many
corporate boards and preferential voting the Fed, can
we say that American business is more open to innovative
voting than the American public at large? Surprising, eh?

For more on ideas to add more democracy to Federal
Reserve elections (including redrawing the "gerrymandered"
Federal Reserve districts, which haven't been changed since
1914), see the March 20, 2001 publciation from the
Financial Markets Center -- www.fmcenter.org.

- Rob Richie, Center for Voting and Democracy

  Regards, Donald Davison - Host of New Democracy,  www.mich.com/~donald

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   |                         Q U O T A T I O N                         |
   |  "Democracy is a beautiful thing,                                 |
   |       except that part about letting just any old yokel vote."    |
   |                            - Age 10                               |
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