The Nation
Let's
Go IRV! By Jim Hightower May 27, 2002 Posted online May 10, 2002
In the late 1950s, as the somnolent Eisenhower years
were drawing to a close, a new presidential campaign sprang forth
and millions of Americans gleefully rallied under its exultant
slogan, I GO POGO! Pogo the possum was the lead character in Walt
Kelly's, witty, wily and widely read satirical comic strip. A modest
and level-headed sort, Pogo was always trying to make sense of the
nonsensical doings of PT Bridgeport, Tammananny, the prattling
cowbirds and other outlandish critters he lived among in Kelly's
Alice-in-Wonderlandish Okefenokee Swamp.
We could use Pogo to help us make sense of today's political
swamp, in which the people's will has been drowned in the mire of
big money and most folks feel that their votes don't count. But
wait! While we don't have Pogo, there is a new common-sense choice
available to us, offering a modest yet powerful opportunity to
democratize our system. The exultant slogan of this campaign is, I
GO IRV! Sally, Bob and Harry
IRV is not a person or a possum--it's
an electoral process with the wonkish full name of Instant Runoff
Voting. Its biggest appeal is that IRV literally makes every vote
count. Voters indicate both their favorite candidate and their
runoff choices, in order of preference, all on one ballot. If four
people are in a race, instead of marking only one of the four boxes
(as now) you put a "1" by your first choice, a "2" by your second...
and so on. When the votes are counted, if no candidate is the first
choice of a majority of voters, an "instant runoff" takes place.
Here's how it works: The vote tabulators drop the candidate who came
in fourth. But--and a beautiful "but" it is--they add the second
choice votes of that candidate's supporters to the tallies of the
top three. If this still doesn't produce a majority winner, they
drop the third-place finisher and the next choices of these voters
are allocated to the top two...until one candidate accumulates
enough votes to add up to a majority. This liberates us to be both
principled and pragmatic! Let's say your choices are Sally
Sensational, Bob Boring and Harry Horrible. Unlike today's
winner-take-all system, IRV makes it easy for you to go with your
heart and choose Sally. If she doesn't make it, you have not wasted
your vote and allowed Mr. Horrible to win. Instead, your second
choice is then allocated to Bob's tally, helping him defeat Harry.
IRV does several other big things for democracy. One, it encourages
more Sally Sensationals to run, greatly adding to the debate,
because now they can appeal to voters on the basis of their ideas,
not on a prejudgment by the cognoscenti that they are spoilers who
"can't win." Two, Bob Boring can't ignore or trash Ms. Sensational,
because Bob will want to be the second choice of her voters--indeed,
Bob will have to adopt more of Sally's positions, rather than
tilting toward Mr. Horrible, as he now does. Three, voter turnout
will increase, because an ordinary person's participation and vote
matters in the final tally. Four, formal campaign debates will be
opened to more than two candidates, because now the "third" and
"fourth" candidates are real factors without "spoiling" the party.
Five, if Mr. Boring does win, he knows he got there thanks to
Sally's supporters. Six, by opening up the process, more
Sensationals will be heard and get elected--and that's the bottom
line, for politics ultimately is about winning and governing. IRV Rules
Such a far-reaching reform will never pass, you say. Already
has. On March 5, IRV won two huge victories. Led by the Center for
Voting and Democracy (CVD), a San Francisco grassroots coalition
(including PIRG, Common Cause, NOW, the Sierra Club, the AFL-CIO,
the League of Conservation Voters, the Democratic Party and the
Green Party) came together to win a local initiative for instant
runoffs. This victory was long in building. CVD and the coalition
had gone group to group and door to door during the past few years
to educate activists, officeholders, the media and just plain folks
about our friend IRV. In addition to a volunteer operation that
walked 400 precincts and phoned and mailed to thousands of homes,
this determined citizens' brigade put up an innovative website
(www.improvetherunoff.com) with an interactive "try it" feature,
allowing folks to test-drive the IRV process. However, the downtown
business crowd turned ugly, mailing such hit pieces as a flier sent
to Chinatown voters depicting the tanks at Tiananmen Square, warning
that a yes vote would usurp their voting rights. But good organizing
and the inherent beauty of IRV prevailed in a 55-45 victory--and
America will now have a big-city example of this reform in action.
Meanwhile, in Vermont, CVD had been working with the League of
Women Voters since 1998 to educate and organize for IRV. By March 5,
they had put an advisory question on the agendas of town meetings
throughout the state, calling on lawmakers to adopt the instant
runoff process. They built grassroots support ranging from members
of Common Cause to the Grange and including top leaders of the
Democratic, Republican, Progressive and Green parties. When the
question was posed, fifty-two of the fifty-five towns voted "yea."
Lest you think San Francisco and Vermont are atypical tests of
IRV's appeal, Louisiana has for years been asking its overseas
voters to use it when voting absentee. Also, there's a growing
movement to use it on campuses for student-body elections (the
University of Illinois and the University of Maryland have already
adopted it), and it is the established form of voting in such
nations as Australia and Ireland. Next up is Utah, where Republicans
will use IRV this month to choose their Congressional nominees; in
August Alaskans will vote on a referendum to use it for state
elections. Nationally, Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. has
introduced HR 3232 to provide funds for states wanting to adapt
voting equipment to allow instant runoff voting in presidential
elections. IRV is no silver bullet to solve
our myriad political woes, but it's a big procedural advance toward
a functioning democracy, and CVD can help you bring it home to where
you live (www.fairvote.org
). |