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The Davis Enterprise
INSTANT RUNOFF VOTING PROPOSED AT UCD
Tabulation method would eliminate the need for second
elections
Sunday, January 26, 2003
The Green Party at UC Davis has proposed the Choice
Voting
Amendment for this February's student ballot, ushering in a
more
flexible, efficient and democratic system of electing
campus
representatives.
Under the current system of runoff voting, a first election is
held for
student-body President. If no candidate receives a majority of
the
votes, a costly and exhausting second runoff election is held a
week
later so that a clear majority can be determined. This
prolonged ritual
is a uneccessary hassle for students, faculty and
candidates.
To solve this dilemma, the Choice Voting Amendment would
establish instant runoff voting. This is the same runoff system as
the current system except for one major difference: The voters can
indicate their runoff choices all at once, thus bypassing the second
election altogether.
Instant runoff voting has the added advantage of solving the
so-called
"spoiler" problem. For example, during the 2000 presidential
election,
Ralph Nader was blamed for taking votes away from Al Gore and
helping to elect Bush. With IRV, voters would have had the freedom
to vote Nader as their first choice and Gore as their second choice.
During
the runoff, Nader's votes would have been immediately
retabulated
and forwarded to Gore.
Another advantage of IRV is that it discourages mud-slinging --
an
aspect of politics that turns off voters and decreases overall
voter
turnout. With instant runoff voting, candidates have
incentive to court
the supporters or other candidates, asking for their second or
third
rankings. Successful candidates usually win by building
coalitions, not
by tearing down their opponents.
The Choice Voting Amendment also would institute a
system knownas "Proportional Representation" or PR for the student
senate. In the current senatorial elections, six people get elected
in a winner-take-all system. This means that it is possible for the
student government to get elected by only a fraction of the voters.
This also means that large portions of the student voice could go
unheard -- a dilemma that has occured in 2 of the last 4 campus
elections.
With proportional representation, every candidate must
earn a specific number of votes in order to get elected. Once
that threshold has been reached by a candidate, all surplus votes
are then automatically forwarded to each voter's next favorite
choice. This process continues until every vote has been distributed
to saturation. Thus, all students will be represented
proportionately to the votes they have casted.
Keep in mind that the ideas and concepts spelled out
in the Choice Voting Amendment are nothing new or esoteric to
democracy. Both Instant Runoff Voting and Proportional
Representation are used in student governments at UC Berkeley, MIT,
Stanford, Harvard and Princeton. In addition, both practices have
long been used at all levels of government in such countries as
Austrailia, Germany and Ireland.
With a little luck, the Green Party at UCD can help bring this
fair and
representative system of voting to college students here in
Davis. For
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