[Mpls] IRV

[WJKAHN at aol.com]

David Finke writes:

"I was curious about the identity of the anonymous group.
Could you let us know? I've run across several versions
of IRV, some fair, some resulting in distortions of electoral
outcomes as bad or worse than what we have now. It seems the
resolution is dangerously vague in not specifying any details."

I think the most popular and accepted version of IRV is where the choice with 
the least votes is dropped after the first talley and the vote is 
recalculated with the second choice of those voting for the dropped candidate. You could 
go several rounds until you had a clear mandate for one candidate, or in the 
case of a partisan primary, until you had a mandated candidate from each party 
on the ballot. That is my best recollection at least, so I'm going to look for 
that League of Women Voters report Jeanne Massey mentioned. What intrigues me 
further about IRV is that we could have multiple measures on a given issue 
competing on the same ballot instead of the yea or nea on whatever made it 
through a petition process thanks to the hard work or hard cash of some folks 
ordrother. I think the method of IRV I've crudely outlined above would win, over 
the other "designer voting schemes" that IRV supporters have been accused here 
and elsewhere of supporting, in an IRV election with an IRV ballot measure.

Bill Kahn
Prospect Park