Pulling together a few different threads from recent posts, I came up with the following idea. It seems certain that Nader will be on the US Presidential ballot in November and that, while he will get less votes than in 2000, he might get enough to swing the outcome in some states. Also, as I understand things, each state has more-or-less unfettered control over the procedures used to select members of the Electoral College. With 50 states, I assume there must be at least one state where the Democrats control the legislative process (including, if required, the governorship) but which is potentially marginal in the Presidential election. In such a case, it would seem rational to introduce instant runoff voting.
A particularly attractive option for the Democrats would be one in which each candidate could, if they chose, nominate an allocation of preferences. This would mean that party-line voters could just pull a single lever as usual. On the other hand, Nader would be faced with a significant problem. If he allocated preferences to the Democrats, then his power to harm them is gone. If Nader allocated preferences to the Democrats, I imagine that his first-preference vote would increase in the states where IRV was in force, and decline everywhere else.
If Nader failed to allocate preferences (I assume the other option is beyond consideration) he would be forced to state that the two parties were equally bad, which I imagine would alienate potential supporters everywhere. Presumably the Democrats would still get most second preferences.
Nader’s current line, quoted here, is thathe is running again to offer a choice to Americans not served by Democrats or Republicans. He said Republicans had earned a D-minus and Democrats a D-plus., which leaves room for either interpretation (either “both are bad but the Democrats significantly less so”, or ” both so bad that any marginal preference for the Democrats can be disregarded”. The adoption of IRV, even in a single state, would deprive Nader of the room for ambiguity provided by this assessment.
Of course, widespread adoption of IRV would be beneficial to third-party candidates like Nader in the long run, since they would be able to gather support without worrying about the problem of “splitting the vote”. But I can’t see why the Democrats should be so devoted to the two-party system as to throw away a chance of a fairer fight against Bush.
Nader has to actually qualify for the ballot and it looks like he will have difficulty in most states.
Nader has no organization, negligible support and no money. His ego is not compensation.
Yes, the first error here is the assumption that there’s such a thing as a US presidential ballot. Nader has to qualify separately in every state. Still, there might be some swing states in which he makes it on the ballot.
I think that the scenario described will be unlikely for a very long time. In the US, the only places that ever seem to consider voting schemes other than first-past-the-post are places that are, by US standards, very left-wing (e.g. Cambridge, Massachusetts). The Lani Guinier confirmation fiasco several years back also demonstrated that electoral reform of any sort can easily be spun by the right as “quotas” for black people, which makes it instant political poison in large parts of the country.
I haven’t undertaken a survey of state laws on the subject, but my impression is that reorganizing the method of selecting presidential electors in a given state would likely take a powerful bloc in favor in most places. Democrats do sometimes (more often than you’d think, actually) control the legislature and governorship in ideologically conservative or swing states, but they’re typically not the same sort of Democrats who live in Cambridge, Mass., and are mindful of their constituencies. They are likely to think of structural reforms in the electoral system as an express ticket out of office.
The polls which show Nader taking votes from Kerry are incredibly lame. As others have pointed out Nader probably won’t be on ballots in most states. But also, if the polls had Libertarian Harry Browne or Roy Moore in the poll, they would be taking votes from Bush. Putting Nader in the poll is clearly a bias which “shows” that Kerry can’t beat Bush.
Oh why mess around, why not just make it illegal to have any party other than the two big ones. Don’t be shy.
Didn’t the Supreme Court of New Jersey rule in the 2002 Senate election that, essentially, the sanctity of the two-party system trumps written election law? Democrats didn’t complain then because it helped them win.
As I understand it, a number of cities experimented with some form of IRV voting in the 1920’s and 1930’s - Cincinnati may have been the largest. Back then, though, technological limitations meant that IRV voting took a long time to get the results. That, combined with the fact that it led to the election of many marginal groups that both mainstream parties wanted to keep out of power, led to its abandonment pretty much everywhere other than Cambridge.
What do you want to bet that any state that passes such a bill won’t instantly be challanged by the RNC in the Supreme Court to have it overturned. Law be damned.
Forget keeping Nader off the ballot. Here in Illinois, George Bush still hasn’t qualified. Now there’s an election strategy for you.
Chicago Sun Times | February 26 | Bush getting on ballot hinges on statehouse deal
Can’t get IRV passed this year, not even in a single state. Not enough time.
And there’s no guarantee that it would help Democrats anyway.
Can’t get IRV passed this year, not even in a single state. Not enough time.
And there’s no guarantee that it would help Democrats anyway.
Can’t get IRV passed this year, not even in a single state. Not enough time.
And there’s no guarantee that it would help Democrats anyway.
But if it would, by gum, there is no scam too low, no flouting of our piously avowed fondness for what the media love to refer to (when talking about other countries, of course) as “multi-party democracy” too blatant.
Maybe you could get Nader arrested somehow? Have you tried that?
Really, Ophelia, how likely is it that Ralph Nader might do something interesting enough to get arrested?
Ophelia, I don’t understand what you’re up to here. IRV strikes like an enhancement of democracy, and a boon to third parties, as many more people would be willing to vote for them. And it would make multi-party coalitions a useful arrangement. If might mean the Democrats would have to actually negotiate with, rather than ignore and demonise, Nader. And, it might prevent the election of a minority president, which is not in and of itself a disaster, but is hardly good for Democracy either.
Yes, this is being proposed as an emergency measure to keep W out of office, which is a really important goal. But it would seem to have potential auxilliary benefits as well. Are the current rules of our electoral system so wonderful as to be sacrosanct?
That said, it’s profoundly unrealistic for reasons highlighted by various other commentators.
I don’t understand Ophelia’s criticisms either. The usual complaint about plurality voting is that it makes for a 2-party system and IRV would help build smaller parties up. I don’t know that the empirical evidence strongly supports that (the existence of the LibDems is a bit of an embarrassment for the theory) but it’s very hard to see how IRV could hurt third parties. In the American context the main people who would benefit would be moderate (soon to be ex-)Republicans who could defect en masse to a third party and potentially sweep up in the Northeast and Northwest.
Having said all that, and despite being a supporter of IRV, I wouldn’t support doing this now. The biggest single problem with American democracy is that the system is routinely rigged for partisan advantage. (See the recent Texas and Colorado redistributions for examples.) Changing the voting system at this stage for this reason would be another fairly blatant example of that, and I think American democracy urgently needs less partisan involvement in settling (and enforcing) the rules rather than more.
IRV can benefit Republicans too; look at 1992.
The advent of DRE voting machinery (with all its faults) removes many of the technical obstacles to IRV, though a logistical problem remains. IRV has to be counted centrally, so the actual ballot preferences must be communicated to a central counting facility. If you have late-counted votes (eg absentee), the entire count has to be repeated.
What does John mean by “allocating preferences”? That a losing candidate controls who his votes go to? That sounds pretty strange to me.
WRT Ophelia, c’mon guys, have you no sense of (black) humor at all?
(It strikes me that a problem with passing IRV in a strongly Dem-controlled state is that such states are likely to be safe for Kerry anyway, so what would be the motivation?)
“Allocating preferences”
In many IRV systems, a candidate can nominate the way they would like their supporters to allocate preferences. Supporters who agree with this allocation can indicate this in some simple way, analogous to voting for the entire Democrat or Republican slate in a US election. Those who want to allocate their own preferences can do so manually.
Even where this is not an option (as in most Australian elections) candidates routinely issue “how to vote” cards, indicating to their supporters the allocation of preferences they want.
re: “Allocating Preferences”
Thanks. That might fall under the “straight ticket device” laws in the US. A straight-ticket option used to be fairly common, but only 16 states permit it as of 2002.
IRV was approved via a voter initiative in San Francisco a year or so ago. It’s waiting for voting equipment to be certified, though, so it wasn’t used in the recent mayoral election.
Allocating preferences in IRV sounds fairly undemocratic, but I think in practice many people would support it. Certainly many many people follow the “how to vote” cards the parties hand out. And in the Australian Senate (which is proportional representation and does allow allocated preferences) the vast majority of the candidates use the allocated preferences option.
Note one important difference b/w allocated preferences and straight ticket voting. Allocated preferences only apply to the ballot being voted on, not to multiple positions. It’s not like being able to hit a button and vote Democrat for everything from President to dog-catcher. That does seem a little too much like giving the parties an unfair advantage, especially when there are so many different elections being run.
Our system of primaries, which in most states are quite easy to enter, makes the advantages of IRV. Anybody serious about running for office (i.e., not as a protest candidate) can enter the primary. The winning candidate will get the support of the party.
But the politician representing any district is accountable not primarily to the party, but to the voters.
” Republicans have earned a D- and Democrats a D+”
Republicans have earned an F and Democrats a D+. If Ralph can’t make the grade better than that, perhaps he shouldn’t run the course.
Pretty sure IRV is being used in many cities all over the U.S. Might as well introduce it now so we have a shot in 2012.
Or, how about the theoretically-progressive party being….progressive or something, and just introducing a good, new, progressive policy because it’s like a good idea, or something?
I also read IRV has fundamental flaws when the minor candidates get to be not-so-minor. Got some links here.
while he will get less votes than in 2000
The beauty of democracy is that no vote can be “greater” or “less” tha any other. Nader’s votes will be no less than they were in 2000.
There may be fewer of them, but that is entirely a different matter.
(Prof Q and I have crossed swords in this area before, over his insane insistence that “data” is a singular noun).
Not a singular noun, a mass noun. The relevant singular nouns are “datum” and “data point”, which take the standard plurals “datums” and “data points”.
By the stigmatums of Christ, I will fight this one until my dying day :-)
the oed has no entry for datums, and shows data as the pl. for datum.
The only way any sort of IRV or PRV will be introduced is through a ballot initiative—neither major party will institute it since, any party that has a majority will oppose it and any party that’s in the minority can’t get such a measure passed.
California seems like a natural place to try this out. Third parties have strong followings there, and it seems that Californians have a fairly pronounced anti-incumbant streak, which an IRV/PR referendum drive could tap into.
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