By Gerry Del Fiacco
Published November 27th 2006 in St. Paul Pioneer Press
Continued dissection of the outcome of the election for governor is entertaining but bypasses the only important point still open for discussion. The personalities, policies and politics of the respective candidates in that election no longer are at issue.
It could be argued that people have the right to vote for any of multiple candidates running for any office, whether those candidates are mainstream troopers, reformers, non-traditionalists, protesters, comic figures or inhabitants of the twilight zone. Worthiness is a matter of subjective judgment.
But, the point is that the election for the highest office in our state government should be decided by a majority vote, not by a statistical plurality based on the distribution of votes among multiple candidates.
Since the Pioneer Press endorsed a third-party candidate for governor, they owe their readers an objective look at the concept of instant runoff voting, an idea whose time has come.
GERRY DEL FIACCO
Election Day '09 was a roller-coaster for election reformers. Instant runoff voting had a great night in Minnesota, where St. Paul voters chose to implement IRV for its city elections, and Minneapolis voters used IRV for the first time—with local media touting it as a big success. As the Star-Tribune noted in endorsing IRV for St. Paul, Tuesday’s elections give the Twin Cities a chance to show the whole state of Minnesota the benefits of adopting IRV. There were disappointments in Lowell and Pierce County too, but high-profile multi-candidate races in New Jersey and New York keep policymakers focused on ways to reform elections; the Baltimore Sun and Miami Herald were among many newspapers publishing commentary from FairVote board member and former presidential candidate John Anderson on how IRV can mitigate the problems of plurality elections.