On November 2, the voters of Ferndale, Michigan, voted to use Instant-Runoff voting in future city elections, as soon as voting equipment is available to do the job. And in Burlington, Vermont, voters passed an advisory question recommending that the city council implement IRV in mayoral elections. Both cities passed the measures overwhelmingly: 70% in Ferndale and 66% in Burlington.
Also, even more significantly, voters transferred control of the Vermont House of Representatives from the Republicans to the Democrats. The Democrats already controlled the State Senate. It is now more than likely that a bill to establish IRV in Vermont statewide elections will pass in 2005. It is not known if the Republican Governor will sign or veto the bill, should it reach his desk. During the period 2001-2004, IRV bills were repeatedly stopped by the Republican majority in the Vermont House.
Also, the first IRV election in San Francisco was successful. The San Francisco elections office released a preliminary IRV count on Friday, available here.
The use of IRV in San Francisco pointed out several weaknesses in this flawed voting system:
— The software for tallying the vote results failed and the election results were not known for some time due to the failure.
— Several of the candidates won office despite the fact that they did not achieve the support of the majority of the voters. (Claims that IRV always elects a majority winner are shown as bogus when a significant proportion of the voters refuse to rank candidates after their first choice.)
— The fact that so many voters refused to rank candidates after their first choice demonstrates that this voting system is asking too much of the voters.
— Several days later the results of the election could not be completely certified even though only a small number of votes were still outstanding due to late mail-ins. Ths is because of the roll-up nature of the voting counting system where only a few votes for also-ran candidates swing an election.
Also note that with IRV a late vote for a leading candidate can actually cause the leading candidate to lose. This is yet another of the amusing anomolies that makes the IRV vote tallying system unsuitable for real world elections.
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