Mar 05 Simple Arithmetic

I trust my readers understand the Constitutional, moral, and administrative problems with Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), starting with the fact that it's far from Instant.  But D. J. Tice really exposed its inherent flaw, the end of one man, one vote in his March 4, 2010 Minneapolis Star Tribune Commentary.   Allow me to recast his example of a three way race.

Candidate	First	Second	IRV Total
Tom	43	n/a	51
Dick	29	Tom=6, Harry=23	49
Harry	28	Tom=8, Harry=20	0

Tom wins, as he would have in a three way general election. But now D.J. makes a small change, where two of Dick's voters decide to vote for Tom instead.

Candidate	First	Second	IRV Total
Tom	45	n/a	49
Dick	27	Tom=4, Harry=23	0
Harry	28	Tom=8, Harry=20	51

Whoops! Harry wins this scenario even though Tom has even more first place votes.  D.J. notes:

IRV proponents say such outcomes are highly unlikely, and that the same ambiguities affect any election (including a primary) that narrows a field of candidates for a runoff vote. But in theory it does appear that votes could backfire under IRV.

I disagree, in that if these voting patterns took the form of a primary election immediately followed by a two candidate general election (my preference), Tom wins either scenario handily.  With time between these elections, the supporters of the losing primary candidates have time to more thoroughly consider their general election vote, which is a good thing.

I can appreciate the enthusiasm that "young Turk" voters might have for IRV, but they need to take some of the energy to fully and maturely consider the full situation.

Cross-posted and comments welcome at Speed Gibson.