On October 14, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed AB 1294, the bill to let all cities and counties use Instant-Runoff Voting for elections for their own officers. His veto message says, “This represents a drastic change to the way we vote. I am concerned that we don’t yet know enough about how voters will react to such a dramatic change. Charter cities and counties already have the right to hold ranked voting elections, yet only one city has done so thus far.”
This is absurd logic. Several cities in California have already voted to use Instant-Runoff Voting, but state law prevents them from implementing their choice because they aren’t charter cities.
Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed same-sex marriage two days ago on the grounds that in 2000, the voters of California had indicated they don’t want to recognize same-sex marriages performed in states such as Massachusetts. He said he is upholding the will of the people.
When he vetoed the National Popular Vote plan last year, he said the plan, by conceivably awarding California’s electoral college votes to a candidate who didn’t win in California, would violate the people’s will.
Yet, in his recent vetoes of the IRV bill, and the bill to count write-in votes when the voter forgets to “X” the box, he is revealing that he doesn’t really care about the popular will at all.
Several cities in California have already voted to use Instant Runoff Voting, but state law prevents them from implementing their choice because they aren’t charter cities.
Only the city of Davis is in this category. The cities of Oakland, Berkeley and San Leandro (all in Alameda County) do have charters. Implementation in Berkeley has been delayed in part by exactly the sorts of problems that AB 1294 would have helped to solve by putting counting and reporting procedures in state law. Implementation in Oakland may also be delayed, even though the county’s equipment vendor was more or less on schedule until the recent decertification of touch screen voting machines put everything else on the back burner.
That said, the veto message lacks both reasoning and any respect for evidence. For example, it describes San Francisco’s adoption of IRV as being on a “trial basis”. Huh? I don’t see anything about a “trial” in the San Francisco charter (or in any other the other charters for that matter).
Are ALL incumbents EVIL and caring only about their own EVIL party gang ??? Duh.
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Major defects of the Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) Method, 30 May 2007
Times are ROUGH and TOUGH — like 1860 or 1932. The *middle* is very divided.
34 H W S
33 S W H
16 W H S
16 W S H
99
Place Votes Table
1 2 3
H 34 16 49 99
S 33 16 50 99
W 32 67 0 99
99 99 99
With IRV, W loses. H beats S 50-49.
Head to head (Condorcet method) —
W beats H 65-34
W beats S 66-33
W WINS.
IF the first 2 place votes are *YES* votes (as in Approval Voting), then —
H 50
S 49
W 99
W WINS
IF the Bucklin Method is used (add place votes to get a majority), then adding the place 1 and place 2 votes —
H 50
S 49
W 99
W WINS
H Hitler, S Stalin, W George Washington (American General in the 1775-1783 American Revolution and the first U.S. President, 1789-1797)
IRV is super-dangerous since it ignores most of the data in a place votes table — regardless of the New Age mindless math MORONS hyping IRV in various places — especially for executive / judicial offices.
IRV WILL nominate / elect HITLER / STALIN TYPE extremists —- who will claim a mighty IRV majority *mandate* for their EVIL stuff — while defeating compromise candidates — especially for offices like President, Governor, Mayor, etc.
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ALL (repeat ALL) voting methods have problems with 3 or more choices. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_system
Example – divided majority
26 AB
25 BA
49 Z
100
Can the 49 Z voters choose the lesser of the two A or B evils (according to them) ???
So disapointing.. This bill never intended to force anyone into IRV, it was simply allowing non-charter cities the chance of implementing it, instead of going through the trouble of establishing a charter. So ridiculous. Like Bob Richard pointed out Davis is going through this. They could have saved alot of work.
As for the Condorcet and Range voting supporters, any bill that would get us closer to any reform, including these would be welcome.
People who think IRV is perfection may be “math morons,” but those who think it will single-handedly lead us to tyranny aren’t paying attention to reality.
The Hitler/Stalin/Washington example and those like it always assume that the “moderate” candidate will naturally be the second choice of anyone whose first choice is one of the more “extreme” candidates. Note that in the above example, not a single voter ranks Washington as her or his least favorite candidate.
This common assumption — that voter preferences can always be plotted on a linear axis in accordance with static, abstract notions of left and right — has the disadvantage of being false. Polls and documented voting behavior repeatedly confirm this.
Once you remove the assumption of linear voter preferences, the practical differences between IRV and other systems such as Condorcet become much smaller; they will generally produce the same results.
And if 34 percent are voting for Hitler and 33 percent for Stalin, you’ve got problems that the voting system is not going to solve.
Only SUPER-Morons could NOT note the left / right extremist math for U.S.A. Prez in 1860, 1932, 1968, 1972, 1992, 2000 and 2004 to name just a few.
It will only take ONE election to elect a Stalin or Hitler type via IRV to be Prez for the END of freedom in the U.S.A.
Thus — IRV is for New Age math MORONS who just love electing Stalin or Hitler types with their IRV manufactured majority mandates for a *change* [to death and destruction].
In case any of such MORONS have not noticed, every New Age rotted incumbent considers him/her self chosen by Heaven and has the support of 100 percent of the voters in *his/her* election area turfzone [political concentration camp area] — with a *mandate* to be a total leftwing or rightwing statist lunatic.
“And if 34 percent are voting for Hitler and 33 percent for Stalin, you’ve got problems that the voting system is not going to solve.”
Exactly! If two-thirds of the people favor a totalitarian state, then it’s very doubtful that they will allow the remaining third to hold them at bay for very long.
Instant Runoff Voting fails an important election rule – KISS. Keep it simple stupid.
San Francisco elections have seen no increase in turnout. Voters continue to under vote their ballots (only marking one or two candidates) to an extreme amount. IRV is becoming known as “incumbent protection” in San Francisco.
DO a control f and type in “incumbent” at this webpage, there are several different articles about this phenomenon in San Francisco elections since the advent of IRV
http://www.instantrunoffvoting.us/sanfrancisco.html
Also, take a look at how Australia, using IRV – has a two party rule, and Ireland has nearly a one party rule.