Dems supporting IRV? Don't hold your breath (unless we elect DK)

[Mairead]

http://sfweekly.com/issues/2003-09-17/feature.html/1/index.html

...

Adding to the intrigue is that even as elections officials fumbled IRV's implementation, forces linked to Brown and Newsom (who both opposed Prop. A) worked to sink the new system before the Nov. 4 election to choose a mayor, district attorney, and sheriff. The most detailed evidence of their efforts is a 106-page legal challenge to the Elections Department's ability to hand-count ballots during the city's too-little-too-late bid to get Shelley to certify IRV in time for November.

The document was prepared by two heavy-hitting law firms with long ties to Brown and the downtown business establishment -- Remcho, Johansen & Purcell in San Leandro, and Pillsbury Winthrop, which has offices in San Francisco and New York and employs more than 800 lawyers. The Remcho firm has represented the state Legislature in redistricting matters and has had extensive dealings with Brown, a former state Assembly speaker, and numerous other local Democratic figures. When the firm's founder, Joe Remcho, died in a helicopter crash in January, Brown was a pallbearer at his funeral.

...

The firms' clients in the anti-IRV drive included Mary Jung, a member of the San Francisco County Democratic Central Committee who has supported both Brown and Newsom, and David Lee, who heads the Chinese American Voter Education Committee. Newsom's campaign donated $5,000 to the nonpartisan CAVEC last year. In July, CAVEC representatives urged Shelley to reject IRV, arguing that not enough could be done to educate voters before November and that minority voters therefore would be confused and effectively disenfranchised.

It's an argument also advanced by two other clients of the law firms. One is a local chapter of the A. Philip Randolph Institute, the national black trade unionist organization. The other, which has taken a lead role in pressing the case against IRV before the Elections Commission, is the California Voting Rights Foundation. But IRV backers claim the foundation is little more than a front for the Remcho law firm. And state records appear to bear them out. Those documents reveal that attorney Tom Willis, a Remcho partner, is the foundation's principal officer. Not only that, but the foundation's address and phone number match those of the law firm's San Leandro office.

...

[10digits]

1. How dumb is this?

It seems to me that this is a plan to give losers an unfair advantage.
If no one likes a party's platform they need to lose.

A third party could win if it mobilized people to its policies but that doesn't happen. The green party shows it can't elect anyone. The reform party tried and failed. The Prohibition party still trys but then you know better. And there are many others.

IRV is a stupid idea.

[LWolf]

2. I like IRV.

Or at least, I would like to see it tried. I think starting at the smaller city level would be a good way for the nation to see it in action, and make sure it is working correctly. But I would like to see IRV happening.

The constant tide pushing us to the mushy middle happens because of the "electability" thing. People vote for their 2nd or 3rd choice just to keep the other side from winning. With IRV, you can vote for your real choice without fear that your giving up the election to the opposition. This brings issues and ideas to the table that currently get ignored as not "mainstream."

As a not very "mainstream" person, I'd appreciate this. I think my ideas and points of view are just as important and valuable as the next person, whether the mythical "average american" agrees or not.

It also gives a clear majority, avoiding run-offs etc.

I wonder what the outcome of the 2000 election would have been with IRV in place?

[diamondsoul]

4. Interesting question, about 2000.

Personally, I suspect Bush would have won under IRV. Possibly not, but that's what I think, mainly because of the elimination factor.It would have come down to rankings between Bush, Gore and Nader anyway, and likely Bush would have beaten Nader which would have put him in the lead. Just a guess based on how many people disliked Nader enough to rank Bush ahead of him. I'd have voted in an IRV election if I had to walk to the polls, though, and ranked them Gore, Nader, anyone else running except maybe LaRouche, and then Bush.

[LWolf]

7. My understanding of IRV

is that if you don't want your vote to count for a candidate, you don't include them in your choices. You don't have to rank every single candidate on the list; just your personal top choices.

I doubt if the Nader voters would have included Bush; their votes probably would have ended up with Gore.

[diamondsoul]

10. Right, but for elminations, a non-vote

is the same as a losing vote. I gather that's one of the few drawbacks to IRV from some of the reading I've been doing. Say a Nader voter votes Nader and Gore leaving Bush off, a Dem voter votes Gore, Nader and Bush- the third vote of the Dem voter counts as a win for Bush, and the Nader voters non-vote balances that out as a losing vote.

[audibledevil]

8. The problem is

DENNIS KUCINICH COULDNT GET ELECTED

[diamondsoul]

9. Your comments so far look very familiar to me

from a few other places. I don't know whether I'm right or not, but I do know you are very wrong about Kucinich.

[dsc]

3. I must be very tired this morning

but I don't find Dean or Kucinich mentioned even once in what you chose to quote. Did you quote the wrong stuff or write a bizarre headline?

[diamondsoul]

5. I think the point of this was that Kucinich is the only one

even mentioning IRV. This is in spite of the fact that our entire elections system needs a MAJOR overhaul. People seem to forget the US is not SUPPOSED to be a two party nation. It's come down to that now because of the problems with increasing population and the radical differences in tallying election results, from when the country was founded and the election system organized.

[JohnKleeb]

6. thats our Dennis

:) ever the outspoken

[Tim The Enchanter]

11. Dean has been involved with IRV

It would be nice if he did talk about it now, though.

"Richie could well be right. In Vermont, where Democratic Governor Howard Dean, Democratic Secretary of State Deborah Markowitz and activists with that state's politically potent Progressive Party are promoting IRV reforms, voters at town meetings across the state on Tuesday overwhelmingly endorsed the idea. Among those speaking for the reform at local town meetings was former New York Times political writer and columnist Tom Wicker, who suggested that Vermont could lead the nation toward a politics that more accurately reflects voter sentiments."

"Wave of Election Reform Hits California"
The Online Beat by John Nichols (The Nation)
March 6, 2002
http://www.thenation.com/thebeat/index.mhtml?bid=1&pid=24

[Tim The Enchanter]

12. Dean's Endorsement of IRV

"Like a growing number of Vermonters—including the League of Women Voters, AFL-CIO and the other major candidates for governor in 1998—former Vermont Governor Howard Dean advocates instant runoff voting (IRV) for major elections. On the campaign trail in 2003, Dr. Dean frequently mentions IRV when asked about campaign finance reform. Following is a typical response; it is a quote from an event that aired on CSPAN in January 2003."

Former Governor Howard Dean

Linn Co. Iowa Democratic Fundraising Dinner, Marion IA

January 18, 2003

"If you want real campaign finance reform, here's what you've got to do, and you have to do all three at once. You have to do public financing of campaigns, you have to have instant runoff voting, so Ralph Nader doesn't take the election away from Al Gore, although we know it was really the Supreme Court that did that, and you've got to have either a constitutional amendment or a better court that will say free speech and political contributions are not the same thing. We can do better than the FEC is doing right now, which is busy gutting McCain/Feingold, which a lot of people right here worked very hard for."

From The Center for Voting and Democracy

http://www.fairvote.org/irv/vt2003/dean.htm


Instant Runoff Voting (IRV)

"UPDATE: San Francisco is scheduled to use instant runoff voting (IRV) in the November 2004 city elections. Interest in Vermont continues to grow, and twenty states have IRV legislation. Senator John McCain, former Vermont Governor Howard Dean and Congressman Dennis Kucinich are among supporters of IRV. Many leading colleges are adopting IRV for student elections. We have a new brochure contrasting IRV with traditional runoff elections and have prepared model testimony on making the case for new voting equipment to be ready to implement IRV."

From The Center for Voting and Democracy

http://www.fairvote.org/irv/index.html

[Sean Reynolds]

14. Thanks for that Enchanter!

:bounce:

[goodhue]

13. positive campaigning

http://www.kucinich.us/issues/issue_campaignreform-irv.htm

Our election system is in need of serious reform to expand and enrich democracy. I support measures such as comprehensive campaign finance reform and Clean Money public financing of the public's elections; ample free television time for candidates, coupled with the break-up of the media monopolies that restrict political debate; election day as a holiday; election day voter registration; enhanced voting rights enforcement; an end to the racially-biased disenfranchisement of felons who have served their time; full Congressional representation for residents of the District of Columbia; cross-party endorsement or "fusion"; an inclusive debate process that does not exclude credible 3rd-party candidates; and expansion of elections using full (proportional) representation, which assure more accurate and broader representation than winner-take-all elections.

I also support "Instant Runoff Voting." IRV offers a cost-effective way of insuring that the winning candidate is preferred by a majority of voters; it encourages voters to vote their wishes and not their fears; it promotes greater voter turnout and positive campaigning.

I am running my presidential campaign in line with these reform principles. I don't take corporate PAC money. My campaign is financed largely through small donations, mostly through the Internet -- and propelled by thousands of volunteers. A true grassroots campaign.