{news} Proposed agenda for the 6-26-07 SCC meeting of the GreenParty of CT. Starts at 7:00PM sharp

[Robert Vogel]

Consider making an effort for IRV. SusanBysiewicz favors it and so do many other legislators.

Most people would agree that we should have an election process that we can trust. That's increasingly not the case. Election machines have massive vulnerabilities, voter registration lists have been 'cleansed' for effect, media is extremely biased, fund raising is more important now than votes, and the two party system is itself a spoiler. 

Here's an example: New Mexico had  a Senatorial election in which a Green Party candidate ran strong. Although the majority would not have wanted it, the Republican won. This would not happen using Instant Runoff Voting.

 Using Instant runoff voting (IRV) "voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate receives an overall majority of first preferences, the candidates with fewest votes are eliminated one by one, and their votes transferred according to their second and third preferences (and so on) and all votes retallied, until one candidate achieves a majority. The term 'instant runoff voting' is used because this process resembles a series of run-off elections." (wikipedia points out a number of places IRV is being used. 

Today an independent candidate, like Michael Bloomberg, could enter the national election and be a spoiler. 

With ten candidates in each party, if democracy is an American value, we should go to IRV before the primaries. 

See http://www.seconnecticut.com/elections.htm for more details. 


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