University of
Washington Graduate Student Government uses IRV
February 13,
2002
Hi.
I'm the president of the Graduate and Professional Student Senate
(GPSS) at the University of Washington. --That's the
student government for graduate students at UW. Anyway, we just
passed a resolution to do all of our single member elections by
IRV, and to support IRV in general. The resolution is below. I
believe the undergraduate student government (ASUW) here is
going to be also supporting IRV for its future
elections.
-David
Nixon GPSS Pres and IRV supporter!
------------------------------- GPSS
RESOLUTION 14.01-02
A RESOLUTION IN SUPPORT OF INSTANT
RUN-OFF VOTING
WHEREAS
GPSS recognizes the importance of fair and democratic elections,
and
WHEREAS single-member plurality elections allow for the
election of a candidate who was not voted for by the majority
of voters, and
WHEREAS
a system of Instant Run-off Voting (IRV) would prevent this by
making sure that the will of the majority is expressed in the
outcome of elections,
THEREFORE,
BE IT RESOLVED BY THE GRADUATE AND PROFESSIONAL STUDENT
SENATE
THAT GPSS will use IRV in all of its single-member
elections where there are 3 or more candidates, and
THAT
Article V Section G Clause 1f of the GPSS Bylaws be changed to
read,
"If
there are more than 2 persons running for a single office, Instant
Run-Off Voting shall be used: Each voter shall rank the candidates
in order of most to least preferred. A candidate receiving more than
50% of first-choice votes wins the election. In the case that no
candidate receives more than 50% of the first-choice votes, the
candidate receiving the fewest number of first-choice votes shall be
eliminated and ballots listing that candidate as their first choice
shall be recounted using their second choice candidate. This process
shall repeat until one candidate receives more than 50% of the
votes.", and
THAT
GPSS supports the adoption of IRV in other single-member
elections.
Submitted by: David Mitsuo Nixon Sumeer
Singla Kara Hedrick
[passed
with a positive recommendation by the GPSS Executive Committee on
Jan 30, 2002.] passed by GPSS on Feb 13th, 2002
|