New vote: Instant Runoff
by N.S. Garcia
The Metropolitan
As third party support continues to grow and root into America’s
political system, debate sparks about the instant runoff voting system.
If implemented, it would allow people to vote their conscience, giving
voters a real freedom of choice.
Both major parties have nothing about IRV on their official Web sites,
which suggests that both parties are ignoring this issue.
“One of the best strategies you can have is to ignore,” said
Libertarian Party congressional candidate, Richard Randall, who has been
campaigning against major party congressional candidates Pete Coors and
Ken Salazar.
Randall responded to major party candidates on the issue of IRV by quoting
Gandhi: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they
fight you, then you win.”
Major media sources have been reporting on IRV for almost two years.
San Francisco plans to use IRV in their November, 2004 city elections.
Their success or failure could be a deciding factor in future legislation.
“San Francisco is a milestone. A lot of folks are watching. It’s
changing the way that elections are looked at,” said Brent McMillan,
national political director for the Green Party. “We’re big
supporters of it and are actually the ones out there doing a lot of work
in support of it,” he said.
IRV is a system that lets voters rank the candidates instead of just
voting for one. It ensures that no candidate will win with less than 50
percent of the vote. With this system, the voter’s second choice
matters, too.
The candidates with the lowest percentage of votes is out but the voter’s
second choice percentages are tabulated and given appropriately to the
candidates who are still in the running until one of them gets more than
50 percent of the popular vote.
The idea of IRV is that it would give voters the confidence and security
to vote for their real first choice candidate and is understandably favored
among third party candidates as a way of eliminating the fear voters have
of throwing their vote away.
“Initiative 318 in Washington State is currently trying to get
it (IRV) on the ballot by gathering signatures,” McMillan said.
“Without IRV, voters are forced into voting for the lesser of two
evils rather than the greater good,” said Kevin Zeese, spokesperson
for the Independent Campaign of Ralph Nader.
Randall has a similar view and gave the analogy of having the choice
to pick only between the Nazi and the Communist Party.
“If you’re voting for the lesser of two evils, that means
you are still voting for evil. We need to start voting on who we think
is good,” Randall said.
Upcoming legislative decisions regarding instant runoff voting would
not only benefit the growth of the Green Party and Libertarian parties
but would also benefit other third party candidates as well.
If nationally implemented, it would encourage more candidates to run
an aggressive campaign, giving Americans a real choice in leadership.
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