Senate Schooled in Proposed Voting SystemSupporters of Choice Voting Amendment Lobby on Thursday
By Hilary Costa
Published February 3rd 2003
With no legislation on the agenda at Thursday night's ASUCD Senate
meeting, the senate took time to hear a 20-minute presentation by
supporters of the Choice Voting System, an electoral procedure that
students will evaluate in the winter 2003 ASUCD election.
Sonny Mohammadzadeh and Chris Jerdonek spoke about the merits of their proposed voting system, which is also referred to as Instant Runoff
Voting for presidential/vice presidential elections, and Single
Transferable Voting for senate elections.
If their ballot measure is passed by 60 percent of the voters, it will
institute a ranking system in ASUCD elections similar to those already
implemented at Stanford University, UC Berkeley, California Institute of
Technology and many other universities across the country.
"In your opinion, what system truly represents the people better: A system that allows minorities to elect all or a majority of senators, or that
truly, proportionally represents students accurately?" Mohammadzadeh
asked.
He noted that Choice Voting would eliminate the cost of runoff
presidential elections, which have occurred at UC Davis five times in the
past nine years.
In explaining the system's benefits on a larger scale, Mohammadzadeh said that Choice Voting would have prevented the controversy over the 2000 U.S. Presidential election.
"It was actually a flaw of the system that caused Al Gore to lose,"
Mohammadzadeh said. "It's not Ralph Nader's fault. He has every right to run."
Mohammadzadeh and Jerdonek also presented slides outlining the benefits of Choice Voting, which they said included deterring negative
campaigning, since a candidate wants a voter to at least rank him second,
if not first.
"Of the 40 or so full-fledged democracies in the world, there are only
five that still use the winner-take-all system, such as the United
States," Mohammadzadeh said.
A series of slides also outlined the STV process for electing a
proportionally representative senate, using an example from a Cambridge, Mass. city council election. In this scenario, a candidate's votes in excess of a preordained, proportional minimum are distributed to the voters' second-choice candidates using an algorithm formula until the top candidates have equal representational support.
After their presentation had finished, those present used public
discussion time to ask Mohammadzadeh and Jerdonek follow-up questions about the system's merits and to comment on their support - or lack thereof - for the system.
Junior Kenneth Bloom spoke against the voting system, saying the language contained in the ballot measure does not define the runoff methods clearly enough, and that IRV has technical flaws. He used a whiteboard to draw an example of a case where a candidate with more votes actually ended up losing an election.
Mohammadzadeh, however, later refuted Bloom's example.
"These situations don't tend to be realistic," he said. "When you have
that many people voting, it's pretty damn hard to know how to rig the
system."
Ethnic and Cultural Affairs Commission Chair Atul Nair said he favored
amending the ASUCD election system, and that Choice Voting would
promote a "diversity of ideas" and make ASUCD elections "less binary."
But while some senators, as well as Nair, said they believed Choice Voting would eliminate the binary ticket system that dominates ASUCD
elections, Mohammadzadeh said he did not think it would "affect the ticket system much." Berkeley, he said, still has a "strong" two-slate system that uses Choice Voting.
As the question-and-answer session continued, however, some senators and commission chairs sitting around the table had tired of the hour-long
session, and wished to return to regular senate business.
"You should educate yourself and not force people to come and educate us," said Bob Gill, chair of the Academic Affairs Commission, advising the senators to visit websites posted by Mohammadzadeh in order to obtain more information.
Sonny Mohammadzadeh and Chris Jerdonek spoke about the merits of their proposed voting system, which is also referred to as Instant Runoff
Voting for presidential/vice presidential elections, and Single
Transferable Voting for senate elections.
If their ballot measure is passed by 60 percent of the voters, it will
institute a ranking system in ASUCD elections similar to those already
implemented at Stanford University, UC Berkeley, California Institute of
Technology and many other universities across the country.
"In your opinion, what system truly represents the people better: A system that allows minorities to elect all or a majority of senators, or that
truly, proportionally represents students accurately?" Mohammadzadeh
asked.
He noted that Choice Voting would eliminate the cost of runoff
presidential elections, which have occurred at UC Davis five times in the
past nine years.
In explaining the system's benefits on a larger scale, Mohammadzadeh said that Choice Voting would have prevented the controversy over the 2000 U.S. Presidential election.
"It was actually a flaw of the system that caused Al Gore to lose,"
Mohammadzadeh said. "It's not Ralph Nader's fault. He has every right to run."
Mohammadzadeh and Jerdonek also presented slides outlining the benefits of Choice Voting, which they said included deterring negative
campaigning, since a candidate wants a voter to at least rank him second,
if not first.
"Of the 40 or so full-fledged democracies in the world, there are only
five that still use the winner-take-all system, such as the United
States," Mohammadzadeh said.
A series of slides also outlined the STV process for electing a
proportionally representative senate, using an example from a Cambridge, Mass. city council election. In this scenario, a candidate's votes in excess of a preordained, proportional minimum are distributed to the voters' second-choice candidates using an algorithm formula until the top candidates have equal representational support.
After their presentation had finished, those present used public
discussion time to ask Mohammadzadeh and Jerdonek follow-up questions about the system's merits and to comment on their support - or lack thereof - for the system.
Junior Kenneth Bloom spoke against the voting system, saying the language contained in the ballot measure does not define the runoff methods clearly enough, and that IRV has technical flaws. He used a whiteboard to draw an example of a case where a candidate with more votes actually ended up losing an election.
Mohammadzadeh, however, later refuted Bloom's example.
"These situations don't tend to be realistic," he said. "When you have
that many people voting, it's pretty damn hard to know how to rig the
system."
Ethnic and Cultural Affairs Commission Chair Atul Nair said he favored
amending the ASUCD election system, and that Choice Voting would
promote a "diversity of ideas" and make ASUCD elections "less binary."
But while some senators, as well as Nair, said they believed Choice Voting would eliminate the binary ticket system that dominates ASUCD
elections, Mohammadzadeh said he did not think it would "affect the ticket system much." Berkeley, he said, still has a "strong" two-slate system that uses Choice Voting.
As the question-and-answer session continued, however, some senators and commission chairs sitting around the table had tired of the hour-long
session, and wished to return to regular senate business.
"You should educate yourself and not force people to come and educate us," said Bob Gill, chair of the Academic Affairs Commission, advising the senators to visit websites posted by Mohammadzadeh in order to obtain more information.
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.