The Alternative Vote

[Darrell Hougen]

In the interest of starting a discussion about creating a better government, I was wondering what people thought about the "Alternative Vote" and other non-standard voting methods.

Watch

and

There are also other possibilities, but I don't remember where the videos or explanations are for them.

My opinion is that such methods make a lot of sense. Of course, politics might become even more partisan if Libertarians and Greenies were actually able to get elected. However, it might turn out that Libertarians and Greenies are capable of compromising on some issues. The way things are now, they never even get a chance to talk to each other because only Democrats and Republicans can get elected.

Darrell

[Selene]

Darrel:

This is also referred to as "proportional," or, "weighted" voting.

It has been tried in NY City for Councelmanic races in the '30's I believe.

More recently, it was employed in all the NY City School Board Races under decentralization. In that

system there was a "spill" event wherein a candidate reached the magic number which was based on the

total vote cast in the district divided by the positions and a 3rd factor.

It definitely leads to an influx of "minority" ideas. Hell, they elected me 3X and I walked around

with Atlas or another Rand book.

A...

[Selene]

Here is some decent background...it is testimony on the system from 1997.

Testimony to the Citywide Community School Board Elections Committee on December 2, 1997

By Robert Richie, Executive Director, The Center for Voting and Democracy

(The New York City Community School Boards have been elected by the choice voting method of proportional representation since 1970. The elections have been controversial. Rob Richie of the Center for Voting and Democracy recently testified before a task force charged with making recommendations about changes in the elections, including a possible elimination of the choice voting method. Note: the Center does not take a position on the school boards. Rather, we seek to make it clear that problems that exist with these elections have nothing to do with the method of election --a method which in fact produces more diverse representation than likely could be achieved by any other election method.)

http://archive.fairvote.org/library/geog/cities/ny_school_board.htm

A...

these were really fun times

[Selene]

Darrell:

This is a letter to the NY Times from 1993 that explains, to a degree, what I called a "spill" event.

It also led to "slate voting."

There would be a UFT slate, CSA, SEIU, Superintendents Union,Parents, Church [which included Catholic, Christian, Jewish communities, various independent ones.

Hope these posts help.

Proportional Voting Suits School Elections

Published: May 29, 1993

To the Editor:

"The School Board Sham" (editorial, May 4) demonstrates some misunderstanding of proportional representation. You describe the system as confusing and complex. It is neither. Proportional representation's

recent negative image may have more to with political corruption in Italy than with proportional

representation.

You state, "once candidates get enough votes, additional votes are discarded." This is not true. Voters complete their paper ballots by ranking candidates by any criteria they consider appropriate.

The greatest value of this system is that the ballot of each voter has a good chance of going toward

electing a candidate that voter wanted elected. A candidate needs only a certain number of votes to be elected. Once he or she has reached that number, excess votes are transferred to the voter's second

choice. This system is fairer than the winner-take-all system precisely because the ballot is not

discarded when it is not needed to elect a candidate.

Minority groups have often been excluded from legislative bodies because of the at-large,

winner-take-all method of election, which submerges their vote. There was great surprise in 1988, when 45.4 percent of the voters in Cincinnati, presented with a referendum to elect their city council

through proportional representation, voted in favor of the measure.

The elimination of proportional representation in New York City's school board elections would insure

that many voices are left out of the dialogue. ROLAND NICHOLSON JR. New York, May 13, 1993 The writer

is a member of the Electoral Reform Society.

[Selene]

This site looks excellent - haven't had the time to really read through it yet.

http://www.fairvote.org/reforms/fair-representation-voting/choice-voting/where-choice-voting-is-used/in-the-united-states/history-of-use/a-brief-history-of-proportional-representation-in-the-united-states/

THE HISTORICAL ROOTS OF PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION

The political roots of proportional representation in the United States originated in the Progressive Movement of the early 20th century. Besides such issues as child labor laws, anti-monopoly legislation, and women’s suffrage, Progressives were also interested in government reform. Many were particularly concerned about the corruption in urban governments. Large cities often were dominated by ‘party machines,’ of which Tammany Hall in New York City was the most infamous. Bribery, kickbacks, favoritism, and voting fraud were rampant in these cities. The Progressives wanted to clean up these cities and blunt the power of the party bosses.

Their urban reform program included such things as the non-partisan ballot and replacing elected mayors with appointed city managers. Some Progressives also added proportional representation to this reform agenda. They argued that winner-take-all, single-member district elections served to reinforce the power of urban political machines. It was not unusual for machines to win almost all the seats on city councils, based on only 50%-60% of the vote. PR was seen was a way to break these one-party monopolies and to allow for the fair representation of a variety of political parties.

The Proportional Representation League of the United States was also instrumental in promoting the use of PR. Founded in 1893, the League soon followed the lead of English electoral reform groups and endorsed the single transferable vote as the most preferable version of PR. The League eventually began to enjoy some political success when it decided in 1912 that its most realistic goal would be to promote the adoption of PR on the city level. Cities presented the fewest legal and procedural obstacles to PR. Usually cities would only need to change their charters to adopt PR elections. This change could be made by referendums that would be voted on directly by citizens, thereby avoiding the need to convince government officials to pass this reform.

Well, looky here!

It's them damnable Progressives again!!

A...

[Darrell Hougen]

Adam,

I think the "Alternative Vote" is a little different from proportional voting, though it has some similarities. The alternative vote could still work even if there were only one candidate per district.

Here is how it would work. A person would rank the candidates on the ballot with a first choice, second choice, etc,. but wouldn't have to rank candidates he or she didn't like. So, for example, a person might just have a first choice and no second or third choices.

If a person had a second choice, that vote would only be looked at if the first choice candidate did not get enough votes to win the election. If he did get enough votes, any extra votes for him would still be wasted.

Third party candidates would benefit in the following way. Suppose a Republican, a Democrat, and a Libertarian were running for office. Normally, very few people would vote Libertarian because they'd worry that their vote would be wasted. Now, lets suppose that for 30% of the population, the Libertarian candidate was their first choice and the Republican candidate was their second choice. Those people would be happy so long as the Democrat wasn't elected. Suppose also that for 25% of the population, the Libertarian candidate was their first choice and the Democratic candidate was their second choice. Also, suppose that 25% just wanted the Republican and 20% just wanted the Democrat. Well, with the alternative vote, 55% would choose the Libertarian as their first choice, 25% would choose the Republican and 20% the Democrat and the Libertarian would win. However, if all the Libertarian candidate's supporters thought their candidate didn't have very good odds, they would just vote for their second choice and the Republican would win.

Even if the Libertarian candidate didn't win the first time around, he might discover that 10-20% of the voters would actually support him and he could build on that to gain voters over successive election cycles. If he thought that only 1% of the voters would ever vote for him because of their fear of wasting their votes, his candidacy would never get any traction.

What do you think of the merits of the Alternative Vote relative to proportional voting?

Darrell