On September 9, U.S. District Court judge Richard Seeborg upheld San Francisco’s method of Instant-Runoff Voting for city elections. Opponents had filed a lawsuit earlier in the year alleging that it violates the rights of voters, because they are limited to only three choices. The lawsuit is Dudum v City and County, 10-00504, northern district. The IRV opponents need not decide whether to appeal until October 9. The opponents indicate they haven’t decided yet whether to appeal. The 28-page decision of the U.S. District Court is here.
Just because IRV is a bad idea, doesn’t mean it’s illegal.
IRV = THE method to elect Stalin or Hitler clones when the Middle is divided.
34 H–M–S
33 S–M–H
16 M–H–S
16 M–S–H
99
Hmmm. A mere 67 votes for M in second place.
IRV does NOT treat ALL second, etc. choice votes the same — i.e. NOT equal.
Too difficult for New Age math MORON lawyers and judges to understand.
App.V. for single offices — pending MAJOR education about head to head math.
I wonder whether the restrictive San Francisco version would have produced a different result than that actually occurred in the Tasmanian division of Denison. Certainly, the North Carolina version would have.
This idea that top-three IRV is unconstitutional because it limits a voter’s expression is laughable. Is it the limit of expression within a voting system that makes it unconstitutional by whatever means (free association, equal protection, and due process in this case)? If this is the conclusion, plurality voting would be banned. After all, plurality is about the least expressive type of voting there is.
What a ridiculous case!
@3: Thank you! I was hoping I wasn’t the only one to feel that way. . . .
Dang it — typo! I meant @4; I don’t have the devil of a clue of what happened in Denison, Tasmania. . . .
Oh, here’s a link:
http://welections.wordpress.com/2010/03/20/south-australia-and-tasmania-2010/
It says Tasmania uses STV in five 5-seat districts, and the results came out pretty close to proportional as far as I can see at first glance:
Liberal 39.1% (+7.2%) winning 10 seats (+3)
Labor 37.1% (-12.1%) winning 10 seats (-4)
Greens 21.3% (+4.6%) winning 5 seats (+1)
Others 2.5% (+0.3%) winning 0 seats (nc)
So, Jim, could you elaborate a bit?
#6 This was in the recent Australia House of Representatives election. In the Tasmanian division of Denison.
There were 5 candidates, one from Labor (ALP), one Liberal, one Green, and one independent (who had in a previous election stood as a Green), and someone else. The ALP candidate was first on 1st preferences with around 35.8%, with the Liberal at 22.65%, Independent 21.26%, Green 18.98%, and other 1.32%.
Apparently enough Greens transferred to the independent to put him into 2nd, and then the Liberal voters may have slightly preferred the independent. So the final results was independent 51.2%, ALP 48.8%.
It has been only been a few weeks since the election, so the Australian Electoral Commission has not published enough information to verify that this was what has happened. In Australia, they assume that the ALP and Liberal/National candidate will come in first and second, and initially county only the top preference of each voter among those party’s candidates (Two Party Preferred).
If only the top two would have advanced to the runoff, as is the case in North Carolina, then it would have been between ALP and the Liberal candidate.
If there was not a requirement for exhaustive preferences, there might not have been enough transfers to catch the ALP candidate (we might be dealing with preferences about which candidate a voter is more indifferent about, or wishes to express less disdain for).
Or even if voters were permitted to only express 3 preferences, and even if all voters did use all 3 preferences, there might not be enough transfers.
Did the Stalin and Hitler clones move to A land — in an effort to have world conquest via IRV ???
P.R. and App.V.