from USA Today (2001)
Two California cities, Oakland and San Leandro, just adopted a better way for local elections, called ''instant runoff voting.'' Under it, voters rank the candidates 1, 2, 3 in order of preference. Voters thus could support both a Nader and a Gore, both a Buchanan and a Bush, or any other combination.
If a candidate wins a majority of first-preference votes, the count is over and that candidate wins. If not, the last-place finisher is eliminated. Ballots cast for that candidate are counted for voters' next choice, until someone has a clear majority. Australia and Ireland have used the system for decades.
1 comment:
If you had a three way race between Nader, Kerry, and Bush, wouldn't that still tip the race to Bush? In fact, probably more so, because people would assume they could afford to support Nader and so you would probably end up with 25% Kerry 25% Nader and 50% Bush.
As it is, hardly anyone voted for Nader, and Bush still won, but it seems like with instant runoffs, more people people would vote for Nader, not less.
Or am I missing something here?
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